conversions only cost $2K
Oh yeah? Is that using slave labor, or simply your own sweat equity? Exactly what do you mean by "conversion"?
Now, I can see the parts to convert perhaps totaling up to $2000, if the donor cab were free (and rust free), but there's easily 250 hours of labor to swap firewalls, never mind the time it takes to strip down both the donor cab and the receiver, and it's often the case when doing such profound work to the vehicle that other *unexpected* stuff needs upgrading or replacement. Things like TRE's, brakes, steering boxes, etc - rot in the floor pan and rockers would need attending to as well.
Many 45/47's come with bucket/bench seat combos, and if you want to swap when changing the steering wheel to the other side, them you'll find they aren't set up to be simply reversed like that. So then you go to swap in seats from the donor, if they're any good, and you find that the holes in the cab floor aren't set up for that arrangement, or the altered seatbelt locating points. That means, to do it right, tearing up the cab floor to put the mountings in the right spots (one of them will appear in fact when the sheet metal is cut out).
Swapping the brake, clutch, and accel. lines to the other side will mean all new lines. In the case of the 47 series, LHD parts are few and far between I have found. For a diesel like mine, the vacuum lines on my firewall needed fabrication after the conversion. I was glad to have parts from 4 donors to draw from, one of which was a 60 series. If your donor and receiver vehicles are the same year, you may be luckier, but more likely they will be of different years, and these details are reflected in the firewalls - things like accel. pedals, pedal buckets, clutch master mountings, etc, varied from year to year, and what looks like a simple swap develops many surprising complications. The wiring harness is another example - it can't simply be flopped around and reversed. Unless your donor cab has a pretty similar wiring loom, you will be into cobbling one together pretty much from scratch as I am doing. How many hours do you imagine that takes?
And then once the conversion is complete, the truck will need repainting. Done with quality paint materials, and assuming minimal body work, this will run $3000-5000. Sure, you could also take it to Maaco for the $500 slapdash special, but would you do that after 250+ hours of work?
My RHD to LHD conversion, which involved some serious floor and sill repair, has easily swallowed up 500 hours of labor time and probably $7-8000 in parts and materials, including paint/body work. There's an easy 200 hours to go on the restoration, and at least 50 hours of that relates to issue that arose during the conversion. If I did another one, I would try to start with rust free donor and receiver of the same year and engine config. if at all possible. Knowing what I know now, that would cut the time down a fair bit - maybe to 250 hours or so.
Man if I found someone who could convert my truck from RHD to LHD for $2000,
and do it properly, I would take them up on it in a heartbeat.
Well, that's what a "conversion" means to me at least - making the converted vehicle as close as possible to the way it came out of the factory, both in appearance and function.
... or HenyJames' firewall 
