Freightliner ambulance conversion project.

[Ozrockrat]

Bugger!!!! Heading off tomorrow and sprung a leak in the suspension airbag. Compressor can keep up at the moment but I don't think it will get better. No replacement anywhere in Phoenix. 7 - 10 days delivery. Managed to get a couple ordered out of South Dakota (Firestone W01 358 8868, Freightliner 57920-002, Henderickson 57965-2)

I think I will try a patch on it in the morning and just leave. If I need a new one I will wait on a beach in Baja until someone can bring one down.

 

[Ozrockrat]

THe Ambo in the desired environment. It makes all the busted knuckles worth it.

 

[hobietony]

Excellent!

 

[patoz]

THe Ambo in the desired environment. It makes all the busted knuckles worth it.

View attachment 263066

And that's the way it should be!

 

[Ozrockrat]

Sitting by the beach with poor internet while I write this so no photos yet. But I did get to stress test the fuel filtration and tires yesterday.

Picked up a bad batch of fuel in San Filipe (don't buy diesel from the place on the round about). Truck was surging and miss firing. So I pulled off the road to check things out into a nice open area. Even with over 12" of clearance under the diff I managed to bury it down that far. No horsepower but judicious use of the shovel, some rocks and tire treads and dropping the tire pressure down to 40psi finally got us out.

 

[Herbie]

Do you fuel directly into the vehicle, or into containers first? The couple of people I know IRL who do Baja travel always buy fuel into portable containers then re-filter into vehicles at least (mitigates the particulates problem, at least).

 

[1leglance]

For San Felipe my best luck has been with the Pemex as you are coming into town from the North. They seem to do the most business so I figure the fuel gets turned over enough.
The 2 on the round about seem to deal with locals and don't sell as much diesel and not as much volume.

 

[Ozrockrat]

I always said "55 gallons! That's not a big enough tank!! " Now I have to drop it and clean the crap out I am figuring it is plenty big enough. Still suffering from some hesitation especially on uphill left hand turns.

Jack that advice will stick with me from now on.

Herbie. I usually take 25 -30 gallons. That's a lot of shuffling of fuel cans. I think I will invest in a separate tank and redundant filters in the future. Luckily with this platform I have enough spare room and carrying capacity to handle it.

 

[Ozrockrat]

Whoa Bevan! Slow down... Chances are that you prefilter is just clogged.

I now carry a full set of spare filters

I have just a h2o/10mu pre filter and then the normal Cummins engine filter. In the water filter bowel I can see some crap. But it is running high suction at the water filter and this coupled with the penchant for having more trouble going uphill on left turns leads me to believe I may have problems with blockage at the pickup in the tank.

But I do have a spare set of filters now and when I get to a supply of quality diesel I will swap them out.

It's really not that big an issue and on most other diesels I would not be as concerned but these 5.9 Cummins have a habit of killing fuel pumps if you go with low inlet pressure for too long (usually from lift pump failure)

 

[rlrenz]

If you go with a separate tank, look at using a set of staged spin on filters and a 12 volt transfer pump. Keep spare filters on hand as well. Check out www.boatdiesel.com for some articles on marine diesel filtration.

 

[Ozrockrat]

Problem temporary sorted. Finally stopped in the middle of the road through the military proving grounds in Yuma. Under the watchful eye of a semi friendly military policeman I swapped both filter for no change. Then I pumped some compressed air back from the filter to the tank and blew something back into the tank (or blew the pickup and screen off LOL). Now I can maintain 65 anywhere.

Now when I get home and have some time I need to drop the fuel and get the tank cleaned.

I like Jack's ideas of a particle filter before the water trap that is maintainable without going into the fuel tank. I also will be checking out a sediment screen for the tank fill point.

 

[tgreening]

Military Police. Yuma. Must of been a Marine MP. Generally professional but never known one to be overly jolly.

 

[Ozrockrat]

Military Police. Yuma. Must of been a Marine MP. Generally professional but never known one to be overly jolly.

Very professional, fairly jolly but very firm on what he would and would not allow or tell us (4 Aussies hitting him with questions about everything).

 

[Ozrockrat]

Now this is another reason why I don't like duals.

 

[patoz]

Yuck!! I'll bet the brakes look the same way.