Bob the Campulance. E350 Crestline with Roof Raise. V3 in Progress.

azsorenson

New member
Ok. Progress on the bed.
I've been scratching my head on this for probably a month before I even got the ambulance.

Initially figured a murphy would be the way to go but.. decided I'd really like a window in that wall that is accessible in the day. (and not just when the bed was down)
The flip style seemed solid and simple but a couple people told me that they found it a pain in the ass moving the mattress around
I spent a few days looking at slat bed designs and beds using drawer slides but they just seemed too fussy or.. wouldn't extend from bench size to double.


Requirements:

able to grab a quick nap without adjusting anything
bench to remain as stock a possible
I want it to be a fairly comfy couch.
End of a long day I really don't want to have to shuffle a full mattress about or flip two halves from one side to another.


So here's what I came up with:

I built the two frames shown the pic. Each will be hinged to the corner of the bench and since the lid overhangs the bench, they will fold completely out of the way.
The factory bench pad will be replaced with a roughly half a twin mattress.
The other half will be mounted to a sheet of plywood and upholstered.
When in bench mode this will be the back rest. In bed mode of course it'll just be flipped down on top of the frame and secured tightly to the other half the mattress.
I didn't fab it up but there is room for a smaller flip out support in the middle and I'll need to make a middle support for the cabinet side.

It might be hard to tell from the pics but the captains chair will have to come out as it's in the way of the bed.

If a person wanted a queen size width then adding two drawer slides per frame would allow them to extend further than there is room for across the bench.
I may add the slides anyway so that the bed can become two singles. I'll be doing a fair bit of climbing trips and especially for ice season I won't be able to expect that my non-romantic climbing partners always sleep outside.

Cheers,
Ian
Hi Ian, I'm in Phoenix , also have an ambulance camper I've been screwing around with for a year and a half. Send me your # and next time we're up there I'll see if you're up for a beer and some ambulancing.
Mark
 

iggi

Ian
more progress, more fun.

Camped on the weekend. Dealt with some horrendous weather. Fortunately all while we were already setup in camp or driving, and not while we were climbing.
Drove through a gigantic hail storm on the way home. Hail wasn't big but the volume of it was huge! The storm covered about 25 miles. There was so much hail that tons of cars had to pull over to clear their windshields and the guys with the fancy wide tires just had to pull over and park.

I'm still running the Blizzaks that came on the rig and had no issues at all.

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Cranked through a bunch of small stuff today.

Finished connecting the sink and grey water tank. It's just a quick and dirty setup to get me through the summer. 5 gallon water jug into a seaflow waterpump. Sink dumps into a repurposed kitty litter container. Just ratchet strapped the tanks into the side closet under the sink. Repurposed the switch from the suction pump to power and control the water pump.

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Light switches - I probably did this the hard way but I didn't like that the scene lights and cot lights came on when the ambulance doors opened. I like the super bright scene lights for when I need them but they are total power hogs if I don't and a lot of the time camping I like keeping a set of doors open. Looking at the wiring schematic gave me a headache (I'm no electriction) so I resorted to the more manual method of disabling the door switches. For the rear I opened up the AC plug and then was able to access the wires to the rear door switches. easy peasy. I'll probably put a toggle switch there though so I can flip the rear scene lights on without have to walk up to the cab.

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For the side door I was a bit mystified as to how I was going to access the wires. There was nothing like an access panel by the door and I was thinking I'd have to trace from the harness over the cab but discovered there was an access panel behind the passenger seat. Easy peasy to snip and terminate the wires there.

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Fun discovery while there. It's like another storage closet. Not sure what I'll do with it long term but for now it's holding the camp chairs and I'll put the back roller and yoga mats there as well.

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and last but not least.. not my best work but kinda fun. When installing the solar panels I repurposed a former antenna hole that had been left blank and open after being decommissioned. Much to my regret on the weekend I realized that I'd completely forgotten to cover it. (duhhh). Was fishing around the garage for some plate to make a patch with and then noticed the former suction container holder had a nice round steel base of about the right size. Just had to enlarge the centre hole for the solar wires and add some to attach the rough. Applied an obscene amount of urethane roof sealant, screwed it down and called it good. Messy but good.

524178


That's it for now.

Next is installing the vent fans and a 12 volt plug for the fridge so I can NOT use the 120 volt plugin in that corner. Convenient location for running tools out the back but highly inefficient for running the fridge as I'm going 12 volt to the main inverter and then 120 volt to the fridge inverter to be turned back into 12 volt. Not so efficient.
 

iggi

Ian
Switching the cheap powered cooler to plug in directly to 12 volts vs through the inverter was a big power saver.
Ran the whole weekend and despite only two 140 amp batteries we didn't ever run out of power.
Since I ran the 12 volt plug from the exhaust fan I ended up with a low and high setting so at nights to reduce power consumption and noise I switched to low power.

Had a great 5 day trip. Pretty decent success. Have a least of further tweaks and improvements but I could easily run the rest of the summer without any further upgrades or changes.

I did do more sound insulation. (there's a separate post on that)

Fuel economy is still averaging at 15 litres per 100K.
Camped in some awesome full off grid places.
Snuck down some pretty tight trails.

Still no regrets at all for going with the ambulance over a sprinter or any other type of van.
Short of buying a fully converted van there was nothing else I could get road trip ready as quickly.
A truck and slide-in camper could have been had for about the same money but either would have had a lot less internal space or been a much larger and higher profile unit.

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Bikersmurf

Expedition Leader
Just wait till you replace the cheap 12v cooler for a Dometic CRX-50 or bigger. I’ve run most of the “long weekend” on a pair of golf cart 6V batteries... with it in full freezer mode. Randy’s Truck shop has them for about $500 usd. I’ve posted before what their promo code is that will save 10%... NEW10 I believe.

The Dometic units are rated to draw 6 amps running and about 1.1 amps/hour over a 24 hour period vs 5 amps/hour for the cooler mine replaced.
 

Bikersmurf

Expedition Leader
I’m not surprised you’re seeing 15 litres per 100 km. I’ve got that at 80-85 mph and better cruising on the highway at lower speeds. In stop and go city traffic it’s more like 20 litres per 100 km... which is to somewhat be expected with 10 minute trips getting 9k+ moving repeatedly.
 

iggi

Ian
Yeah, a quality fridge will make a big difference.
Still sorting out the exact interior arrangement and what fridge I can fit.
Trying to figure out the best compromise that will allow me to keep as much of that driver side rear closet as possible, while having a fridge that can be accessed with the bed down AND trying to clear the rear passenger side corner to fit a shower & toilet. Quite the puzzle! ;)

Thanks for the beta on the batteries as well!

Ian


Just wait till you replace the cheap 12v cooler for a Dometic CRX-50 or bigger. I’ve run most of the “long weekend” on a pair of golf cart 6V batteries... with it in full freezer mode. Randy’s Truck shop has them for about $500 usd. I’ve posted before what their promo code is that will save 10%... NEW10 I believe.

The Dometic units are rated to draw 6 amps running and about 1.1 amps/hour over a 24 hour period vs 5 amps/hour for the cooler mine replaced.
 

iggi

Ian
It's been busy here. More time spent on camping and life stuff as opposed to campulancing.

A couple notes:

1. An unexpected source of reduced noise. According to the dash sticker that the country maintenance dept left, it was time for an oil change. I'll preface this by saying I had a mechanical inspection done before buying and it appeared the ambulance was really well maintained. I'll confess I wasn't crazy about the sound of the motor though but wrote it off as just being more used to old fully mechanical Toyota Diesel's as opposed to the new fangled 6.0. Everything I read called for full synthetic oil so I went with Rotella T6. Much to my surprise, not only was the engine quieter but it was also smoother and finally sounded like what I expected it should be. How much quieter? According to the app on my phone.. about 3 dB at idle. I'd been averaging 59-60 before after an extensive amount of soundproofing.
IMG_0353.jpg

2. I know we all spend a lot of time obsessing over the layouts of our campulances and whether to do a full-gut or work with what's there. There's no right or wrong decision as long as you're building to suit your needs. I will advocate for working with what it came with though. A primary requirement for me was having a lot of open floor space and the ability to function as a utility vehicle as well as a camper. I've seen some really sweet builds with the bed mounted permanently crosswise by the rear doors but converting the bench into a flip down bed is probably quicker, easier, cheaper and the most flexible when it comes to leaving space for other types of cargo. Snapped this shot part way through packing up a load of stuff for my parents move. Got double that in there before my back decided it was quitting time for the day.

IMG_0354.jpg
 

Coachgeo

Explorer
....

2. I know we all spend a lot of time obsessing over the layouts of our campulances and whether to do a full-gut or work with what's there. There's no right or wrong decision as long as you're building to suit your needs. I will advocate for working with what it came with though. A primary requirement for me was having a lot of open floor space and the ability to function as a utility vehicle as well as a camper. I've seen some really sweet builds with the bed mounted permanently crosswise by the rear doors but converting the bench into a flip down bed is probably quicker, easier, cheaper and the most flexible when it comes to leaving space for other types of cargo. ....
while there is some truth to what you say... unless the items are large you may want to load someday (motorcycle(s), snowmobile or ATVs, etc.) the permanent fixed bed in back does not really change storage capacity or even limit that much flexibility..... back door still opens.. their is storage under the bed and on top of it.... when that is full start thru the side door.

what it does limit though is easy access to rear door for emergency exit if side door is blocked. Now on rigs with a walk thru to cab like yours... then that is not an issue.
 

iggi

Ian
while there is some truth to what you say... unless the items are large you may want to load someday (motorcycle(s), snowmobile or ATVs, etc.) the permanent fixed bed in back does not really change storage capacity or even limit that much flexibility..... back door still opens.. their is storage under the bed and on top of it.... when that is full start thru the side door.

what it does limit though is easy access to rear door for emergency exit if side door is blocked. Now on rigs with a walk thru to cab like yours... then that is not an issue.

Large items are exactly my point.
It's really nice to be able to just huck some bikes or boats or a rototiller or whatever in through the back doors without having to remove or fold up a rear bed or get the cushions and covers dirty.
 

Bikersmurf

Expedition Leader
It’ll always be a compromise. We each have to decide what works for us.

As for noise and oil... I always changed my Yamaha Maxim oil every 2500 km. It ran late one time, however since I was running synthetic and recommended interval was 5K I didn’t worry about it. When I did change it I was shocked by how much quiter it was. I didn’t do that again.

I was a bit surprised when I bought the bike in to have the valves adjusted at 40k miles and 17+ years old. All the valves were within factory spec... despite the previous owner rarely changing the oil during the 12k miles she owned it... it at least got changed the couple times she wrote it off ;)
 
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iggi

Ian
Quick update:

Been having issues with the house batteries going dead way too soon.
I'd assumed my cheapo electric cooler was the fault but on further investigation found the power disconnect switch was burning out to the touch when activated for more than 5 minutes.
That would seem a fault as opposed to a feature.. However, this switch consumes power constantly when it is activated.


Replacing it with BlueSea 7700 Remote battery switch, which has zero draw in either the on or off position.

Also planning to replace the diode isolator with a BlueSea ACR to eliminate the voltage drop present there which as I understand is a factor in short battery life.
It's not as critical as I have the solar wired direct to the battery bank and the shore power charger also skips the diode isolator so it's only a factor for charging from the alternators.
 

iggi

Ian
More electrical troubleshooting.
Posted to the ambulance FAQ as it's likely useful to others.


Short version - Used multimeter to identify a circuit that was drawing 1.13 amps any time the Ambulance Connect was powered up. Appears to be just for activating the rear heat.
 

Bikersmurf

Expedition Leader
Quick update:

Been having issues with the house batteries going dead way too soon.
I'd assumed my cheapo electric cooler was the fault but on further investigation found the power disconnect switch was burning out to the touch when activated for more than 5 minutes.
That would seem a fault as opposed to a feature.. However, this switch consumes power constantly when it is activated.


Replacing it with BlueSea 7700 Remote battery switch, which has zero draw in either the on or off position.

Also planning to replace the diode isolator with a BlueSea ACR to eliminate the voltage drop present there which as I understand is a factor in short battery life.
It's not as critical as I have the solar wired direct to the battery bank and the shore power charger also skips the diode isolator so it's only a factor for charging from the alternators.

The remote battery switch is a neat find. Pricey but nice.

When parked only essential circuits remain powered on. The inverter and other night circuits are wired to constant power rather than through the kill solenoid.
 

patoz

Expedition Leader
The remote battery switch is a neat find. Pricey but nice.

When parked only essential circuits remain powered on. The inverter and other night circuits are wired to constant power rather than through the kill solenoid.


You still should have an easily accessible manual battery disconnect switch near the battery bank and wired in on the negative side, in case of an electrical fire.
 

Bikersmurf

Expedition Leader
You still should have an easily accessible manual battery disconnect switch near the battery bank and wired in on the negative side, in case of an electrical fire.

The inverter uses thumb screws to disconnect and is fused. All the other circuits are also fused (which can easily be pulled).
 

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