Ambulance body on a trailer?

[CAPTNDAVIE]

Anyone took a ambulance body and put it on a trailer chasis as a camper? I have seen several ambulances converted to campers on here. But I cannot find one that is off the vehicle chasis. I am talking about a modern style ambulance. Similar to this:

 

[apexcamper]

Interesting concept...would end up making a heavy trailer...need a lot of truck in front of it. A friend of mine and I almost put an old Pinzgauer ambulance body on a trailer frame one time...but abandoned the idea because of weight.

From my (limited) trailer knowledge, a good set up has twice the gross weight rating of the load actually on it. The ambulance box probably weights well over a ton...add that to a frame with tires, suspension, brakes, axles...looking at an easy 2 tons of drag weight.

Would actually be a pretty good idea to drag behind an old 416 Unimog or something...could take the weight into some pretty remote places, detach the "home" and run some pretty hard trails.

We had a 3 ton army trailer (1.5 ton off road rating) that would take all our camping gear, and we bring A LOT of gear. Iit might have actually held an ambulance box, but I would think going a little bigger would be on the safe side...probably a double axle.

 

[CAPTNDAVIE]

I have been looking at some of the ambulance builds on here. But I don't want a vehicle that has a body that large on it permanently. Thats my reasoning for the pull the body and mount it on a trailer thought and have best of both worlds. But hey, I dream up stuff like this all the time. I usually end up having several unfinished projects due to my "great ideas."

 

[apexcamper]

A solution would be a detachable body on the truck. Design it with some jack stands that raise the body quickly and slide the truck out from underneath. Could store the camper body off the truck, allowing for more day to day use, and could drop the camper body once at a campsite for off-roading.

Another solution might be building an off road camper trailer from scratch. The Ambulance body weights so much more than your standard bumper-pull trailer, and that's before you add stuff. I have seen some really attractive and very off road worth tear-drops built on this forum.

If you do move forward with the ambulance body on a trailer (and I will watch with keen interest if you do), I would think a good starting platform might be a surplus army trailer like the one below. You can occasionally find them for a good price on some of the government auction sites, and it looks like it would have no problem with harsh terrain, as long as you had enough truck in front of it.

 

[762X39]

What kind of trailer is in the above photo? It would be perfect to pull behind my little Unimog for our backroads camping trips (might even let me mount our travel trailer in it).

 

[apexcamper]

That specific one is a Titan ARMEE 5t

8 metric ton gross weight
5 metric ton rated load
runs on 14.00R20 tires
ex german army
10 lug rims like a Man

I think they are running a couple grand before importing.

Given that Govliquidation has 1.5 ton trailers (like the one in the above video) for $150...thats how much we paid at auction...would seem cheaper to buy two for the axles, brakes and suspension, and make your own 4 wheel trailer.

I have also seen similar on the gov liquidation site from the US army as well, like this one which is up for auction right now (below) It's smaller, but probably just as workable.

 

[Brazen]

Anyone took a ambulance body and put it on a trailer chasis as a camper? I have seen several ambulances converted to campers on here. But I cannot find one that is off the vehicle chasis. I am talking about a modern style ambulance. Similar to this:

Just started this exact kind of build... picked up the all-alluminium ambo box yesterday!

Will start a thread once my mates welding fires up in the next week or two to get the trailer chassis started.

 

[jronwood]

I have a Ambulance body here I am/was considering. It is 12' long, Life Line brand, aluminum and insulated. They are STOUT. They seem to be built for collision survivability, which given how they are used make sense (running red lights and all). I think mine might be 2500lbs empty. I am also mulling over a M105A3 build (the A3 are just coming into the used/surplus market, have surge brakes and are a lot nicer than the A2's) OR perhaps two Gitchner Shelters, one 788 (HMMV) removeable on my F-350/450 CC/CC 7.3 frame AND a 705 Gitchner made into a trailer. Still weighing options. My use will be mostly highway/ gravel road. No serious off roading that is what motorcycles are for.

I keep quite a few M105's here on the farm for differing uses (one has 3 ton of pea gravel for the driveway in winter, no salt here). I even converted one into a lowered dumping configuration, we use it ALL the time for Scout outings and their fall cleanup and hauling sand for the annual Luminary sale around Xmas. We use it for local camping as well.

Jronwood

 

[jronwood]

Well, decided in the short run to put a Gitchner 788 on a frame from a M105A3 (surge brakes, much nicer box, tarp etc, than an A2) Here is a pic of the 105 and one of the shelter. I will keep it LOW profile to keep my kayaks and canoes out of the windstream I will have adapters made to be able to run the same 19.5" tires/rims as the truck and the 22.5" tires in the pic will become steers on my Freightliner FC80. A second shelter will be modular to put on my F350 4x4 CC/CC 7.3. Our three Kids get one to sleep in, wife and I get the other. 600 lbs each. Small, but given fuel cost I dont want much, just to get off the ground and keep the kids safe during storms and make breaking camp during road trips easier. We wanna do the AlCan in a few years, so that would be breaking camp every morning. They will have lo pro roof racks and sllide out awnings, made of triple wall lexan and welded aluminum channel. I have done ALOT of road tripping over the years (Canada/Mexico City 5 times), and I dont need much and kinda know what will work for me/us. Kids are young 4-5-9 and so they dont need much either.

I may even mount the portable phone booth trailer body ( little white trailer in pictures, mine is half as long only two phones) in front of the shelter to make a "chuck wagon", it's sides make AWESOME awnings when flipped up. If I stretch the frame properly I can keep the bototm of the fiberglass box and make it inot a "sit in" shower, should work well with the domestic water right there from the kitchen.

Jronwood

 

[1peanut1]

Anyone took a ambulance body and put it on a trailer chasis as a camper? I have seen several ambulances converted to campers on here. But I cannot find one that is off the vehicle chasis. I am talking about a modern style ambulance. Similar to this:

If anyone is looking for an ambulance body, I have a complete body with a 45 amp onan generator, factory ac,heat and power inverter included. Selling for $4500.00