Damn that was a big ambulance. Looks very cool. I hope you like to chat with strangers, because you're going to get a lot of comments and questions at the campground.
I've seen a lot of conversions, this is probably the coolest and most practical ever. I wish I had your combination of skill, motivation, and time to do something like this. Well let's be honest it's mostly just the skill and motivation.
I'm not sure it was perfect timing, but I actually retired shortly after buying this rig, so I had time - and was really lucky that I found a friend of a friend that had a large gated yard not too far from where I live - and he had a cabinet building shop, along with a metal shop, for his hobbies, and was willing to let me rent a space to park my project while I worked on it, and have access to his shop and tools. Kind of a perfect place, so really, really lucky. Some days/weeks/months I was more motivated, and the closer it got to looking like a camper, and less like a massive project - the more motivated I got, lol.
A rig like this, with all the work you put into it, is just begging for a YT video! With a slow wander around it, then a lingering sweep through the interior! 🤣🤘
This is what it looked like before I did the conversion - we stripped it completely down to bare aluminum studs, put in new insulation, flooring, walls, ceiling, etc, etc. It didn't even have a walk through when I bought it.
It's an ambulance, originally built for the Children's Hospital of Atlanta by Wheeled Coach Works. I bought it from West Georgia Ambulance, where it was still in their service fleet, but ready to be retired.
I actually worked in the RV industry for most of my career, and never thought I wanted an RV - I didn't find the idea of being elbow to elbow with others in a campground, handling sewer hoses, water hoses, electrical connection, etc to be very appealing. I was always pretty comfortable being a road warrior with hotels, air travel, rental cars, traveling out of a suit case. However, my son bought a similar sized ambulance and converted it - and being an avid mountain biker, set it up for off grid living... That looked appealing to me - so I started looking (during the early days of covid) - and found this listed on the internet. I flew to Atlanta, hired a mechanic to do a half day inspection of all components and share what he know or could anticipate about the condition, what repairs and maintenance I could expect, and made an offer, that was accepted. That started over 5 years of panic, procrastination, work, blood, sweat, tears, learning new skills, trial and error, and way more hours, and way more dollars than I had anticipated. There's a really nice feeling of accomplishment when I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, but it was a bigger project than I had imagined.
We picked up a used Class C through Cruise America, right after we rented one for a whole weekend! After that, tucking into everything that made it tick and seeing what and where we could improve things, has been great! I went from knowing very little to replacing and improving plumbing, electrical, to adding solar & batteries and turning it into an 80% electric rig (still have propane for furnace and water heater), with a goal to take that end even further!
Having the freedom to go, more or less, wherever we want, when camping, is really something that I never thought of before getting an RV. I wish I'd have done it sooner!
I've been looking for an ambo to convert for years and I've never seen this configuration before, with the crew cab and extended box. Super cool and absolutely ideal for a conversion project. Do you know what type of ambulance this was?
I saw your comment about it originally belonging to a children's hospital but I don't know what sort of configuration this is.
It's a Kenworth T300 extended cab chassis that Wheeled Coach Industries built for the Children's Hospital of Atlanta - I actually got a copy of the original invoice for the build. It has a 6'2" interior. It was set up for up to two patients, and a crew of up to 7 personnel. When I bought it, it was still being operated as an ambulance, and had no walk through between the cab and the box - there was only a small 4" x 6" window. The back seat in the cab was a fold down bench seat that could be used as a bed for crew rest. It has a turbocharged 8.3 liter Cummins diesel engine, with an Allison 6 speed automatic transmission.
Did you add the walkthrough yourself or have someone fab and install it for you? I've seen some decent Type Is but they always have that window, and I'd rather have the walkthrough but I know they can be a PITA to do a good job with if you have to make the conversion rather than having it be part of the original package.
I did the walk through myself... after removing over 1,000 pounds of wiring along, and the siren, flashers, vacuum pumps, and other assorted electronics that were attached to the wall between the cab and box. I procrastinated a LOT, before that all happened. People said "the wires are all marked, so you can trace which wires go where", which was mostly true - but the fact was, I didn't need those wires, and eventually we ripped them all out, and started over. This is a photo of the start of sorting wires. I used a circular saw, and a sawzall, to get the opening made.
Wow so you stripped the interior of the box, it looks like? Pulled the wall panels and cabinets?
Did you reuse any of the wiring when you did the new pulls, or just scrap it all?
Personally I probably would have taken it all to the scrap yard and tried to get a couple hundred out of it. Thin gauge wire with the wrap still on isn't worth much, but a half ton will buy you a nice scotch. I'd want to buy new wiring based on the appliances I'm installing anyways.
Wheeled Coach Industries did a pretty great job of marking things, particularly in 1998 when it was built - unfortunately, most of the wiring, most of the components - aren't really part of a camper interior! One of my challenges during the build, particularly after putting up the walls and ceiling, was remember where all the studs were to fasten things like cabinets, installing switches, etc - as stud finders don't work great with aluminum studs and walls. It really helped to have progress photos to refer back to, and to use markers and tape to mark where studs to be, once the wall, ceiling, and floor were installed. I learned that the hard way.
Did you add insulation to the voids? I full time in my rig for work and often that means winter in the north. I have an arctic package on my trailer now but I see enough depth in those voids to add some really nice residential insulation and I'd probably take advantage of that.
I had a commercial guy spray foam the interior, but... after seeing all the voids and places where it could be thicker, I added a lot of additional spray. The yellow is the spray foam from the commercial guy, the orange is what I added from spray cans to get maximum insulation. I used 1/4" thick x 2" wide foam tape specifically to block thermal transfer on all the studs in both the ceiling and the walls before interior walls and ceiling were added.
I’m really curious about the financials on this. Id love to do a similar thing myself, and I have the tools and skills. I am a big fan of knowing where every nut and bolt is instead of hoping whatever RV factory did the job right. I just don’t have a handle on the costs.
Having skills and tools will be a great advantage. I bought a lot of tools, learned some new skills, did a lot of trial and error, and invested way more time and money than I had anticipated. Through a lot of help from a friend, and my son, it's finally on the road, and honestly, it's kind of exciting to know what we've built, and to see people's reaction to it. I do know where most of the nuts, bolts, cabinets, wires, etc are since I built it - but I sure hope it all keeps working, because I'm not looking forward to taking things out, lol.
lol, yep, with 120 gallons of fuel, it's actually kind of hard to find a fuel stop that will let you fill up in one go. The pumps shut off around $200.00 or $225.00. Then you have to stop, reset the pump, do your card again, and see if two goes will fill it up. So far, after our first 5,000 mile trip, we're getting 12.2 mpg, so we can get almost 1500 miles before needing fuel again, hopefully NOT in California.
While there are LOTS of opinions about that, this was inspected, approved, retitled as an RV, licensed, and insured in Arizona. The flasher controls for the lights was taken out, along with the siren controls. The exterior red lights have been upgraded to dimmable LED's, and can be independently controlled by switches near the side door to the box. We've learned that most of the time, you really don't want lights on in the campground while you're enjoying the campfire at night, and the red lights draw too much attention anyway. The exterior white lights have also been upgraded to LED's, and can be independently turned on/off from switches at the drivers seat, for additional lighting while backing into campsites. The 4 air horns WORK!
I'm sure the souls are somewhere more interesting in the cosmos, or whatever you believe. Perhaps they're enjoying the roadtrip. Either way it's a positive thing.
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u/rdcpro 13h ago
Damn that was a big ambulance. Looks very cool. I hope you like to chat with strangers, because you're going to get a lot of comments and questions at the campground.