Thanks so much man - it was really fun getting to design everything. I'll bet you've picked up a lot of great tips in the past 15 years! (I know that in just the past 6 months we've really refined our routine.)

+Four ZeroFour Awesome! If you want to see more converted ambulances, you should check out some of the build threads on Expedition Portal, where several other people have built out full-box ambulances.

+Alan Bush Thanks!

Thanks! Having that monitor has definitely saved us - whenever we're climbing slow, steep grade - especially offroad - we keep an eye on all the temperatures. We've had a couple small issues, and being able to know right away what *isn't* the problem is awesome.

+Greg Flores thanks man!

+Michael Marcacci whats above the cabin door? and wheres your water/medical ozonator?

+jquest43 Above the cabin is a huge electrical panel that swings down on a piano hinge, and contains all the auto-resetting circuit breakers, relays, and terminal posts. Just behind that (between the cab and rear area) sits the A/C unit and our audio amplifier, router, and LTE booster which can be more quickly accessed from that door above the fridge.

Can you tell me why you're interested in converting a Ford than other vans? Most vandwellers never really said why they chose the van that they chose to even start the journey. Thanks :)

+Michael Marcacci thanks btw,no wifi inside,especially a booster. you can amplfly with a antenna to recieve signals from far,but use ethernet inside van protect your biology no inside wifi dr detrich klinghardt dr jack kruse Dave stezler on one radio network extreme health radio you tube no leds salt lamps ok no compact florescents NO BLUE LIGHT dr rich massey and meridian grace on www.oneradionetwork.com

+tim cao Thanks!

+Mouse Toes Thanks!

+Keith B thanks! It was a bit tricky to design so that all the lengths and angles were where the needed to be in both positions. It uses gas springs to assist in bringing and keeping it up, and also keeping I pushed flat down (so the shortest angle is actually just above flat). To do it I used the AWESOME software Fusion360 by Autodesk www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/overview which is FREE for hobbyists, just like students.

+Michael Marcacci install a skylight/fantastic fan,so your plasma bodies can astral travel at night,if needed.less or no metal in that skylight ,at least 1 foot sq

+jquest43 we definitely considered adding a fan to the roof, but the roof/ceiling gap makes it a bit trickier. Most of the time we do sleep with our heads right under the curved back windows, so while it’s not as good as a proper skylight, we have a great view of the stars!

Thanks!! Portal axles are definitely amazing things :) While this setup is far more practical for our current use (getting to and mapping rock climbing areas full-time) I’ve been “secretly” working on plans to build an all-electric 4x4 vehicle with in-hub motors. The only thing better for clearance than portal axels is no axels!

frankie lee Thanks!

Thanks!

gladd heart Thanks!

+B Glenn Jr Thanks! Since we are using this for a rock climbing project, we haven’t found ourselves in bitter cold for more than a night or two, and the propane stove has warmed it up enough when making coffee in the morning. We do have an HVAC unit that’s tied into the Ford system, but the engine needs to be on to use it. I know that it’s very common to use permanent propane heaters in these, as well as portable Mr Heater style units. Hope that helps some!

+Taylor Rose Thanks!

+Darrell barron Thanks!

+Atlas WalkedAway Thanks!

Hi there, and thanks! My best guess is that we used 6 or so liters of black Raptor Liner (on the grille, rocker panels, lower side panels, and rear drawer/fixture) and probably 12 liters of their tintable everywhere else. I'm not 100% sure, since we used less than we purchased, and I don't currently have access to the rest, which are stored away. Depending on what you include in the cost of the 4x4 conversion (wheels, tires, etc) it cost us between $15k and $20k professionally installed. Everything else - paint, windows, electrical, water, drawers, bracketry, etc - we designed and built ourselves. This obviously let us save a LOT of money... but only if you ignore the value of our time.

+odie175 Thanks!

+Christopher 3D We didn’t ever have a smell issue with this, and both my wife and I have quite acute sniffers. It may depend on the ambulance builder (Leader in our case) or what the ambulance company used to keep it clean. I should mention that we went nuts with 10% bleach and other cleaning chemicals (wearing VOC rated 3M masks) to remove grime and disinfect the whole thing. That added it’s own smell, but dissipated within a few days.

Great, thanks.

Squidward Thanks!

Todd Pettit it has held up impressively: we’ve driven through manzanita-lined trails so thin that both sides scrape at the same time, and the only damage we have ever had is a small chip from a pine tree branch, and even then it was the base Ford paint that separated from the steel. Of course, the strength is totally dependent on the quality of prep work, so a lazy application probably wouldn’t have quite as good results. But this is true no matter what you spray :)

I am prepping mine now hope to have it done in a week. Thanks for the reply.

+S Lipton Thanks!

+Lenny Prosado haha, ya, threw it together in a pinch while in the early stages of that nasty beard 🤢. I also smashed my fingers in the closet there, in case you noticed. I had plans to make a proper cut/edited tour with more media from Boltline, but we are far too busy with the project itself and I wanted something up.

+jesse sumrall Thanks, ya the audio got super stripped down by the noise canceling (thanks to the breeze). This isn’t the video I wanted to make, but the one we had time to make 😑 next one will be better!

+Momm Berryman Thanks for the feedback! Ya, I’m quite unhappy with the volume there too - I think it had something to do with the iPhone’s noise cancellation and the breeze. Next video will use a proper mic 🙃

+Geoff Pope Thanks! Your rig looks awesome - you *definitely* have more space in your box. The drawers were a tad challenging with the van body, since NOTHING is at a 90 degree angle from anything else 😑

+Dave z We were changing too many things at once to be able to attribute any change in mileage to the paint specifically. That said, I don’t suspect it has worsened it noticeably: the modified vehicle has poor aerodynamics to begin with, and there is probably already enough turbulent air flow around the body that the paint adds very little. Of course, air resistance is proportional to the cube of velocity, so the faster I drive, the more these imperfections are amplified. We rarely drive it above 70mph for long periods, since the mileage suffers dramatically.

+AJourneyOfYourSoul Thanks! It has been working out very well - the 4x4 has been used many, many times, and has allowed us to get to spectacular climbing areas that otherwise wouldn’t have been possible. We’ve definitely had problems here and there, but they have all been easily fixed: at one point, the in-tank fuel filter got clogged and starved us of power. This would have been trivial, had the tank not been full, but was still not a disaster. We also had our heater core begin leaking, but were able to swap in a new one in an O’Reilly’s parking lot. There have certainly been other smaller things to fix now and then, and general maintenance-and the van‘s tiny hood makes it a pain to get to things-but after a few swear words it’s always gone back together nicely!

+Connor Lipke the conversion price can vary dramatically based on what all you want and how you source the front axle & transfer case (anywhere from free to several thousands). Parts from UJoint Offroad were about $5k, www.ujointoffroad.com/leafconversion.html not including the axle and t-case parts. If you’re paying a shop to do everything, budget $10k. If you have the space and tools, you can do most of it yourself, but will still want some things (fuel tank welding, etc) handled by a pro.

i have a 2013 ford e350 with the 4x4 conversion by Clydesdale in BC Canada, and it cost about $20,000

+Josh fedora Moore My wife and I are both 5’ 10” and can’t *quite* stand all the way straight. We have friends who can and we are a bit jealous. This is the con of the otherwise extremely well engineered ambulance top: between the roof and ceiling there is a gap of a few inches for wiring and a steel roll cage.

I suppose if you really had a lot of energy, and, an excess of money you could always tear out the floors and recess them like Roadtrek does in order to stand straight up in it. Very nice build!

+VanoRama RV With the van fully loaded doing ~60 we have recently been getting a consistent 16.5 mpg (in the Midwest) but closer to 15 out west (pulling steep passes regularly). As soon as we’re on dirt it plummets, but that’s to be expected. We are on the road mostly-full-time right now, with long stops to work with the data we’ve collected from climbing areas. I’ll definitely check you guys out once we are back on LTE (3G works great for comments but not for video)!

Thanks for sharing. Driving soft highway speed we get aprox. 12-14 mpg at best with the 460 engine. You have to minus 20% to convert from Imperial to U.S. gallons though. So it's costly.

You are absolutely correct! It's their 6" leaf kit, which is the minimum lift you'll need to fit crossover steering with a track bar. It handles extremely well on-road, and is amazingly capable off pavement. The 4x4 conversion was the most expensive single part of the build, but well worth it since the vehicle's purpose is getting us into remote rock climbing destinations.

chasinginger Thanks!

Hi there! The 4x4 cost can vary substantially, depending on what you consider part of the conversion (wheels/tires, limited slip diff, etc) and where you can find a used front axel and T-Case. A good ballpark, though is $15k if you pay for the labor (and much less if you DIY). As far as the paint goes, it’s called Raptor Liner by U-Pol, and we used somewhere in the range of $500 worth of product, plus the cost of all the prep materials. The stuff is REALLY easy to spray if you have a decent compressor, but still requires good prep work (which is 90% of any paint job). The texture does let you get away with less-than-perfect sanding though, which is quite nice. Good luck on your build!

Thanks, brother!

+Norman Abdullah Thanks!

+Kcaremba Emerson Thanks! That kind of depends on what you lump into “the 4x4 conversion” - like new wheels & tires, limited slip diff, etc. All-in-all it was between 15 and 20k.

+MrColdwatercanyon Zero. People don’t die in ambulances - they have to arrive at the hospital, where a doctor can pronounce them dead. 😝

+Michael Marcacci sage yours,replace the bad energetics with good.

have you ever wonder how may souls were born !!

+MrColdwatercanyon Nobody dies in ambulances: they have to wait until they’re at the hospital to be pronounced dead by a doctor 😝

+odie175 Now this is a question we haven’t thought about before! It was in service in LA, which has some of the worst traffic in the US... so probably at least some...

+Gaetan Giroux We currently have about 285k on the engine, and an unknown amount on the much-newer transmission. For us it made a lot of sense to go for a higher-mileage 7.3, since we were replacing or modifying so much of the drivetrain already, and Ford claimed an average in-service life of 500k miles for these engines.

Thanks! It was quite a project, but it’s working perfectly for us.

I cant wait to see more.

+Project 806 Camper Thanks!

+Rustic Nature Reimagined Great question! We chose not to install a dedicated shower or toilet, since we didn’t anticipate needing them frequently enough to justify their space, cost, or extra complexity. And for our use case, we were right! When we are in remote, undeveloped areas, we have been able to dig holes when appropriate, and use WAG bags when not. More often, though, we have access to pit toilets at trail heads, or gas station/Walmart/Starbucks restrooms. For showers, our faucet extends far enough to reach outside, and has a spray mode that makes it perfect. Since we frequently work in places that are private, this has worked well.

+Chris VanOsdol That depends on what you count as part of the 4x4 conversion (new wheels, tires, etc) but between $15k and $20k

+tnecniv It sure did!

We chose not to install a dedicated shower or toilet, since we didn’t anticipate needing them frequently enough to justify their space, cost, or extra complexity. And for our use case, we were right! When we are in remote, undeveloped areas, we have been able to dig holes when appropriate, and use WAG bags when not. More often, though, we have access to pit toilets at trail heads, or gas station/Walmart/Starbucks restrooms. For showers, our faucet extends far enough to reach outside, and has a spray mode that makes it perfect. Since we frequently work in places that are private, this has worked well.

they need to burn sage and do a ritual to clense the van of the bas energetics and inbedd good energetics-this is real physics not woo,woo.

+jquest43 bad

+alyakmc1 Nobody dies in ambulances: they have to wait until they’re at the hospital to be pronounced dead by a doctor 😝

Michael Marcacci hahaha

Not everywhere and besides just because they aren't pronounced dead by a Doctor doesn't mean they aren't dead.

Haha, we fit a spare under the back, where Ford had the original. It’s a 33”, so a bit smaller than the ones on the ground, but it will get us to a shop!

+Galard Mills We don’t, but haven’t really needed one - we tend to either be remote enough to use the Great Outdoors, or close enough to real bathrooms.

they have an EcoFloorDoor-E.F.D., which dumps directly on to the ground for natural cycle of lifage toiletry!!