Found this van yesterday. Considering for build. Your thoughts?

[vintageracer]

Yesterday I found this van. Former Red Cross. 2005 E450 with 14,500 GVW. 34,000 original miles. 6.0 Powerstroke (Yes I know), Automatic, Steering, Brakes, tilt, Nice box with pass through, Heat, A/C, windows on one side, original spare, power inverter, rear A/C & Heat, Runs good, drives good, White original Ford Paint good, Red paint faded, barndoors in rear, step bumper, NICE driver's compartment and more.

I plan to go back with a scanner attached to ride and drive the van in real time looking at the hours on the rig, real oil temp versus water temp and transmission temp to git a good idea of how clogged if at all the oil cooler, EGR and EGR cooler might be. Just because the van only has 34K miles does not mean it does not have a million hours idling which is far worse than driving.

Considering for conversion with Ujoint 4WD, build in rear for camper and pull either a UTV or my 85 4runner for travel.

I can buy the van for $9K maybe a little less.

Your thoughts and opinions if this is a good idea?

 

[UjointoffroadCO]

I love the red cross vans. You know nothing too terrible ever happened in them, so they are free of bad juju! For that cheap price of admission, you could spend some money going through the engine and addressing the common issues right up. I always liked the 6.0 when I was working for ford. Once you wrap your head around how they work, they aren't that hard to figure out whats wrong with them , and the price of injectors and such had come way down.

 

[eporter]

Interesting box on that. Lots of exterior bolt heads. More box-truck like than ambo-like. Most ERVs I’ve seen are more flush and smooth. Wonder if there’s other differences in construction? Guess Red Cross had multiple ERV builders.

ERVs are cool. Go for it!

Not mine, but shows the flush/smooth sides:

 

[vintageracer]

Maybe you can see on the interior pictures on the upper right side a small little piece of the E track bolted to the walls.

That's why all the bolts on the side of the box.

 

[eporter]

Yep, it’s got the e-track bolts in the middle of each side, and also horizontally along the top of each side and door. And bolts run vertically along each side and door. Basically around every edge of the box and doors. Wonder if/how it’s welded? Bolts might be more of a headache if you were trying to really insulate it, eliminate thermal bridging.

Still looks cool, just a different build style than others.

 

[vintageracer]

Interesting box on that. Lots of exterior bolt heads. More box-truck like than ambo-like. Most ERVs I’ve seen are more flush and smooth. Wonder if there’s other differences in construction? Guess Red Cross had multiple ERV builders.

ERVs are cool. Go for it!

Not mine, but shows the flush/smooth sides:

This one is fiber sides versus what appears to metal on the one you posted above.

 

[vintageracer]

View attachment 626756

FLOATER! FLOATER!

Whew!

Different Van!

 

[Deleted member 9101]

So long as you can "bullet proof" the 6.0 your self its not a bad deal. If you have to pay someone to work on it ..... I'd run .

 

[eporter]

This one is fiber sides versus what appears to metal on the one you posted above.

Oh, wow. That makes total sense now. The ones I’ve looked at were skinned with aluminum, ambo-style. I thought they were all that way. I wonder if there’s a weight savings with fiber?

 

[iggi]

I'd do it, pending an hours check. Can't remember if the 2005 dash is the same as the 2008 but on mine you just run through the odometer settings until the hour meter comes up.

 

[Bikersmurf]

If mine didn’t need to be an Ambulance, for advertising reasons, I’d be all over one of those Red Cross vans.
Compared to mine it seems like a ton of money... but it has no miles on it. I’d be Leary of a 6.0... but at least you’re going in eyes wide open.

 

[Craig_C]

Curious if you ended up getting it. I’ve been looking at those ERVs. They are hard to come by. I hear the van 6.0 is different, but all I could find through Google was that it is detuned. For reference last month there were 3 I’ve found. One place had a 7.3 around $13,900 with 120k miles and it was sold I assume because it was not listed in about 2 weeks. They had a 6.0 also, but didn’t look at that really I think it was in the low teens. Another 7.3 maybe $15 or $16 k for 30ish thousand miles was only listed a couple days. It looked clean. I was going to ask my banker (wife) about that one, but it was 13 hours away. Plus I’m hoping prices will come down in the fall, and still figuring out what I want and/vs can afford.

 

[Bikersmurf]

Curious if you ended up getting it. I’ve been looking at those ERVs. They are hard to come by. I hear the van 6.0 is different, but all I could find through Google was that it is detuned. For reference last month there were 3 I’ve found. One place had a 7.3 around $13,900 with 120k miles and it was sold I assume because it was not listed in about 2 weeks. They had a 6.0 also, but didn’t look at that really I think it was in the low teens. Another 7.3 maybe $15 or $16 k for 30ish thousand miles was only listed a couple days. It looked clean. I was going to ask my banker (wife) about that one, but it was 13 hours away. Plus I’m hoping prices will come down in the fall, and still figuring out what I want and/vs can afford.

Even 14 seems like a lot... I know my rig was a steal at $1k... champagne tastes on no budget.