Yet another ambulance build - 2004 F450 4x4

[danneskjold]

I have been living full time out of a truck for two years (until COVID), first a Tacoma with a Vagabond Drifter and finally a 2018 F150 with a Four Wheel Camper.



The F150 was great and the camper were great, but it was overloaded and I was frankly tired of the pop top. I’ve been from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean in my F150 and loved the truck but ready for something new. F150 and camper will be for sale soon if anyone is interested!




Wanted the chance to build something how I wanted, but I don’t have Total Composites money so an ambulance is the next best thing I think.

Recently picked up this 2004 F450 4x4 Ambulance with the 6.0 Diesel made by Horton from a small fire department in Pennsylvania. When I purchased it had roughly 112,000 miles on it, and it served as their bariatric ambulance so wasn’t heavily used.

My specific criteria for an ambulance was I wanted a 2005-2007 F450 4x4. I was willing to compromise on the year for a good deal (which I got), but I did want the 6.0 (I plan on doing EGR cooler and bulletproofing)
Did not want the 7.3 as it’s just old and hard to find, and command a premium I didn’t think was worth it. And the trans issue.
Didn’t want post 2007 trucks to avoid the 6.4, and the 6.7 makes me nervous because of the repair costs (and probably out of my budget).

They had it up on Facebook for $30k, I offered $12k and they accepted - a couple days later I was on a plane to DC and picked the ambulance up, moved my sister out of her apartment (and proceeded to attract a lot of attention when parked in front of a no parking sign to move the boxes into a relatives house) drove it back to Seattle stopping off and camping with friends for a couple days in Bend.

 

[danneskjold]

One of the coolest things about the ambulance is all of the exterior storage compartments, and they are all centrally locking! They all lock/unlock with your cab doors which is incredibly convenient.



The F450 itself has a GVWR of 15,000lbs, and weighed in at roughly 12,660 on the way back. That’s fully gassed up (40 gallon tank) with me, and a bunch of stuff in the back. 2500ish lbs of payload is less than I was hoping for, but considering the box is already on and I have a bunch of gutting to do is not a bad deal. At least that’s what I keep saying.

 

[danneskjold]

So, my plan for it is fairly optimistic. Plan on fully gutting it to the frame, to both optimize space but also insulation and headroom. I’m 6’2, and the box is maybe 5’10 so I can’t fully stand up outside of the entryway. Not the end of the work, but I would like to stand to cook...

Heavily influenced by Lost Box, my plan is roughly..

Plan on a queen size platform bed towards the back, with a “garage” underneath. Bed will be raised 41 inches up from the floor to accommodate a spare 41 inch Continental MPT81 tire - so yes, I plan on ditching the duellies.

Suspension will be 3.0 King Shocks all around, with an ARB bumper on the front for protection. Right now it is fully air sprung in the rear, and I think I would like to switch back to leaf springs.

300ah of Battleborn LiFePO4, 1000ish watts of solar, and a Victron Multiplus for an induction cooktop. I have been running a Battleborn Battery in my FWC for a year and a half and love it, but hate being limited to the 100ah I have in there now.

The stars aligned, and I was actually able to pickup a Victron Multiplus off of Craigslist in DC.

Heating will be done via a diesel heater tied into the gas tank - I have a Propex in my FWC and I’m not a HUGE fan and a diesel heater seems like a no brainer. Only propane appliance will be a hot water heater for a shower (Campluxe) that will be in the entryway.

Between the door and the bed will be a raised L-shaped dinette with pedestal table. Raising the dinette up will give me more storage down below, and make accessing the bed easier (I think).

Fridge will be an Isotherm 130 fridge only, with a companion ARB 35qt as a freezer most likely in the garage.

There is no full size pass through right now, just a slider window and have plans to cut it so I can fit through but I don’t know how complicated that will be.

I had some fancy dimensioned drawings somewhere..but of course can’t find them.

 

[danneskjold]

My grandfather was a lifelong car guy, owned all sorts of stuff, and a good chunk of his retirement was spent working on cars in his barn/garage. He passed away in January and my family is trying to sell the barn but, at least for a little bit I am able to take full advantage of it for the tear down and build. As an aside, here is a (partial) list of everything he has owned - screenshot comes from my sister so excuse the Snapchat ********.



Barn is pretty well stocked with every sort of tool you can imagine short of power tools. I think a lot of what he had was sold off, and the rest is just old but luckily I have a decent collection - just had to buy Milwaukee M18 Fuel Jigsaw and an angle grinder - well worth the money too.



Finished week 1 of the ambulance tear down last week. My girlfriend helped for a day, and then my buddy Jon Burtt popped by and has been helping me ever since. Definitely way easier with two people, and it’s nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of
⠀
Probably 60-70 hours into it right now, but on a slight time crunch. My grandfather passed away in January, and part of his estate includes his old barn/car shop - the timing worked out and I’m able to take full advantage of the shop space, but the barn is being sold so I only have two weeks (1 week left ??). ⠀
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Had it 80% gutted in a matter of hours, the other 20% is what has taken so much time. Ambulances are extremely well built, but are not built to ever be taken apart. I’ve been pretty good about taking my time and being methodical, except for when I cut the AC lines and pressurized Freon exploded in my face (oops). ⠀
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Interior is completely gutted, down to the frame.⁣⠀



Maxxair Fan installed in roof, and sealed.⁣


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Electronics cabinet started (still waiting on my Battleborn batteries and rest of the Victron which is some drama in and of itself ?)⁣⠀



250 feet of duplex wire ran⁣⠀
Cut rear box to accommodate mattress⁣⠀



Installed L-track on roof⁣⠀
⁣⠀
Good news is I’ve managed to shave 1000-1500 lbs off of my starting weight. As it sits now I have 3500-4000lbs of payload remaining.⁣⠀



The amount of wiring, and quality of wiring in these is crazy. I’ve actually opted to NOT use the factory wiring, but each individual wire is actually labeled with what it does and I can go look it up in the manual for more explanation. Wild.


⁣⠀
Goal for next week is to have my electronic cabinet complete (unlikely, waiting on my ******** to ship), insulation laid, and floors/ceiling/walls installed. We will see.⁣I’ll

 

[RAM5500 CAMPERTHING]

They let anyone in this place....

I look forward to following this build sir

 

[RAM5500 CAMPERTHING]

View attachment 592177
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Hahahaha! So true

 

[danneskjold]

I've been bad about keeping this updated for a variety of factors - namely busy working on the ambulance.

Really no clue how people with jobs or kids do this, I guess it just takes a lot longer...

Posting this on a 2-3 week delay, but this is what I accomplished for week 2-3.5.

Now that the ambulance box was stripped down to the frame, it's time to build it up. My buddy Jon Burtt stuck around for another week, and his opinions and help were invaluable.

First step was installing the garage and flooring. The garage floor was made out of heavy duty rubber floor mat from Home Depot (on a roll), while the flooring is just faux wood vinyl flooring. In order to preserve head room I opted to not really insulate it, just used reflectix underneath.



The vinyl in the garage had strips of L-track laid on top to not only secure the floor, but more importantly allow me to tie items down in the garage so they don't move around while driving. Specifically, the tire and my ARB freezer but it works for really anything else as it is so versatile.




Thanks to my Craigslist surfing I managed to find a couple of used RV tanks for cheap. They were $40 so I bought both, one is a 46 gallon tank and the other is 32 gallons. After placing them both in the spot I had planned for a tank, I decided the 32 gallon tank fit much better. More water would have been nice, but I only have a 5 gallon tank in my Four Wheel Camper so 32 gallons is a big step up..




I finally got the bed platform installed. I had some grand ideas to utilize L track and some angle aluminum, but opted instead for the classic 2x4 method as it was just so much easier and cheaper. Platform on top is made up of 1/2 inch Baltic Birch and is the same width as a queen sized bed, just longer (since the truck is wider than the bed). As it sits headroom, not including mattress, is 35 inches - so not a ton, but also doesn't quite feel like a coffin.





Probably my favorite addition during this time period was my shipment from Battleborn Batteries arrived:
3x 100ah Battleborn LiFeP04 Batteries
Victron 150/70 MPPT
Victron BMV-712
Victron Color Control GX

I had used a Battleborn battery in my Four Wheel Camper for over a year, from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean, and loved it. There are certainly some trade offs with lithium (namely cost), but when you buy into the whole Victron ecosystem it makes it all easy. I had ran a Victron MPPT and the BMV in my FWC as well, so they were no brainers when it came to the new rig.

Got everything more or less wired up...and my MultiPlus still doesn't work. Ugh. Ordered their USB cable off of Amazon to try and figure out what was up, and it turns out my Multiplus needs to be upgraded before it can talk to their latest software...which requires a Windows PC (which I don't have). So going to source one and start from there.



And, now (to me) less exciting stuff. Time to get the walls in. Since the ambulance frame is all 2 inch thick aluminum, it makes insulating it really easy. Used several sheets of R-Max r13 rigid foam insulation from Home Depot to insulate it. The walls were just some white 1/4 inch wood paneling from Home Depot, with reflectix mounted to the back. To mount these to the walls we screwed 3x0.5 wood studs into the aluminum, then mounted the walls to that. This not only allowed me to work around a couple ceiling to floor wire looms, but it also created an air gap to hopefully help even more with insulation.

As a note, the studs on the ceiling were all spaced 10 inches apart, but on the walls they all had different spacing so insulating the ceiling went much quicker than the sides.




Finally, since the next step is the ceiling, I installed an NMO WeBoost antenna onto the roof. The roof had 3x existing NMO antenna ports for the public safety radios so it made it easy to put a new NMO mount in and the antenna. I plan on having a telescopic WeBoost antenna mounted to the front for when I am stationary for longer periods of time, but this will do for now.

 

[Crimson Tacet]

Excited to follow along on your build. I won the auction for my ambo Friday and picking up next week! I'm hoping to do a 'down and dirty' 2 week v1 build to get a mobile office/crash pad on the road for the fall and look at more extensive buildout this winter. I hope I don't hate myself for trying to keep the existing wiring, but intend to try and repurpose the circuits I need on battery and go from there.

 

[mtnkid85]

Looking good, excited to see what you do for the pass through.

 

[RAM5500 CAMPERTHING]

Mods I recommenced this post be deleted and @danneskjold banned.

Posting about a build and the Crown Molding” isn’t completed?

This is an outrage!!!

Fix the crown molding and then redo this thread!

 

[danneskjold]

With my upcoming eviction from the barn I had been staying out (no drama, just family needed to get it sold) my girlfriend and I took the ambulance out for a quick shake down run in Oregon over July 4th weekend (yes, I'm late really late to update this), which coincided with a Craigslist solar panel purchase I made.
Ended up grabbing 3x brand new 315W panels off of Craigslist for about $160/each - anything close to $.50/watt is good by me!

First step before leaving was cutting down the ridiculous center console to give my dog some room to lay down. Ended up just taking my sawzall to it, then plating off the front with a piece of plywood I had laying around.



Solar panels acquired!




After grabbing the panels we jetted over to Bend where we grabbed a mediocre camp spot, but where I got the first solar panel installed. After finding a second camp spot that afternoon (not pictured) I managed to get my second panel installed, and was pretty pleased with the results:





The third panel required more work to install, so had to do that one back in Seattle.

This was the first time using the induction stove, and was the first real test of the electrical system. In summary, 300ah of lithium, and 945W of solar seemed totally adequate to keep up with the demands of using the induction stove (average amp draw of 165a), and having an Isotherm fridge and ARB freezer (set to 0) running 24/7. We will see what happens when it gets cloudy out..

The one big problem I found was that the fittings for my sink leaked. I had installed the sink right before leaving, and apparently bought the wrong fittings so had to plug that part of the system and only use the external water (which was fine).

Here's a couple of the different camp spots we had.

 

[danneskjold]

Haven’t worked on much of the interior for almost 2 months. For the most part, this was all (including gutting the box) done in a month. Not sure how people with kids and jobs would possibly do this...but this is where it stands today.



Biggest detail that needs to be fixed is crown molding put in on the upper walls to hide the wires, just need to find some big enough. After that, the dinette needs to be completely rebuilt into something useful and the garage blocked off.

After that, I’m going to take out the steps and replace them with an industrial sink that will act as a shower pan for my yet to be built shower.

The question that I get asked the most is “can you stand in it?” and for the most part the answer is yes - I can stand over the sink where I put a Bomar hatch in (hatch can be closed), and I can stand in the entryway. Other than that I don’t really see a need to stand.


Airhead Composting Toilet

3 Person Wrap Around Dinette

Queen Sized Bed

Bomar Roof Hatch

Maxxair Fan

Isotherm 130 Fridge

Mini Duo Induction Stove

Butcher Block Counter Top

35 Gallon Water Tank with Sink/Faucet

300ah Battleborn Lithium

945W Solar

Victron MPPT

Victron Multiplus 3000

Victron Orion DC Charger

Victron Color Control

 

[danneskjold]

After the interior was "completed" (which in my vocab means usable, as it will never actually be totally completed. Always more stuff to do) the next step was to start on the outside.

Probably the most important thing to me was getting myself off of the stiff 31 inch dually tires and into something that offered good ground clearance and better ride quality.

The plan was to go with Buckstop Super Single Wheels and Continental MPT81s. Buckstop was the most expensive($800/wheel), but had the shortest lead time and seemed to be the "best." I obviously wasn't super excited about dropping $4000 on wheels alone, and after surfing Craigslist I ended up stumbling upon a set of 4x 1st Attack Super Single Wheels down in Big Bear for $500 (a nice $2k-3k savings) that came with some 35 inch Nitto Terra Grapplers.

Only problem was...I'm in Seattle. Nevertheless, I called the guy up and told him I would be down in a couple days to pick them up. I weighed the pros and cons of driving down vs flying and renting a car and decided it would just be easier to drive the whole way.

Left Thursday morning, got to Lone Pine that night and picked them up Friday morning and then drove north.

"Camp" Friday morning:


And, the wheels and tires:



Turns out the only reason the guy was selling the wheels and tires was CA would no longer let him register his 7.3 F550 due to CARB regulations (anything older than a certain year and weighing more than 14,000lbs is unregisterable). Bad news for him, but good for me.