International 4700 Ambo build

calicamper

Expedition Leader
Ambo updated photo...

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I spy a sun fish. Great explorer rig you dont need to paddle. ;-)
 

Baloo

"The Bear Necessities"
The mast sections are stored under the truck, it took a minute to figure out where they would fit and not be damaged in transit.
 

Baloo

"The Bear Necessities"
Time to put down the tools and eat some turkey! Happy Thanksgiving!


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Baloo

"The Bear Necessities"
Replace rotted body plugs for all those options I don't have...

Cleaned the surface with brake cleaner,

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Test for the new plugs,

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Got seam sealer all over my fingers!

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Baloo

"The Bear Necessities"
Two coats of paint on the floor, time to let it dry them reinstall the rubber flooring and trim.

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New Carbon Monoxide / Propane detector came in today as well. Time to get some more wires run and get it mounted.

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Baloo

"The Bear Necessities"
Had a little Ambo camping this past weekend.

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Happy to report the furnace worked perfectly!


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Last edited:

Baloo

"The Bear Necessities"
Installed a water/meth kit, lower egt's and a little more power!

90bc549ae2dc35cbbba1154e3d60b7f8.jpg


Under the hood

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Under the dash

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The cool new gauge

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Just have to weld up a mount for the tank.


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FDM2012

Adventurer
Have you finished the install? As there isn't any room for an intercooler on mine, I will probably do
a kit like this. Where did you get it?

Anxious to see your results!




Installed a water/meth kit, lower egt's and a little more power!

90bc549ae2dc35cbbba1154e3d60b7f8.jpg


Under the hood

35c837b09852ae5d1a5f6790a87ce9a5.jpg


Under the dash

b2ee48b5660beaaaf6f633c2261d3e3d.jpg


The cool new gauge

804ceda5f9f6f3e6433ec69a2ce734cd.jpg


Just have to weld up a mount for the tank.


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Baloo

"The Bear Necessities"
I will get it all sorted out this weekend. I had to change out my radiator to be able to fit the intercooler I have. I used the radiator, intercooler and condenser from a FedEx truck. Fit perfectly with very little modifications, and cools much better than the stock setup.


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KE7JFF

Adventurer
Nice Truck!

How well does it do up hills? The reason I ask is the SAR group I am with has an Southern Ambulance Class A unit with a 4700 Cab and the DT360 and its a bit pokey up some good hills..
 

Baloo

"The Bear Necessities"
Nice Truck!

How well does it do up hills? The reason I ask is the SAR group I am with has an Southern Ambulance Class A unit with a 4700 Cab and the DT360 and its a bit pokey up some good hills..

When I first started driving the 4700 I found the engine to be incredibly sluggish. It turned out to be the terrible automatic transmission, the Allison AT500 does not have a lockout feature for the torque converter. After a little tranny swap (look back a few pages) to a Eaton manual the truck came to life. Then came a few adjustments, fuel rate, preboost, injector pump timing and installing a huge intercooler. Tipping the scales at close to 17K pounds it can happily tow my 6800 pound camper like it doesn't exist. I am really looking forward to towing with the water methanol kit. So far driving it with water/meth has been amazing!

My biggest bit of advice is to get the service manual, it show all the settings for manual vs automatic tranny injector pump settings (they are different). My truck was stock 12 degrees injector pump timing, where as manual tranny with an intercooler can be set 17 to 19 degrees. Mine is set to 17 and it woke the engine up, better fuel economy and much cooler egt's.

The DT360 can makes a ton of power, but I was shooting for the middle ground between reliability and performance.
 

KE7JFF

Adventurer
When I first started driving the 4700 I found the engine to be incredibly sluggish. It turned out to be the terrible automatic transmission, the Allison AT500 does not have a lockout feature for the torque converter. After a little tranny swap (look back a few pages) to a Eaton manual the truck came to life. Then came a few adjustments, fuel rate, preboost, injector pump timing and installing a huge intercooler. Tipping the scales at close to 17K pounds it can happily tow my 6800 pound camper like it doesn't exist. I am really looking forward to towing with the water methanol kit. So far driving it with water/meth has been amazing!

My biggest bit of advice is to get the service manual, it show all the settings for manual vs automatic tranny injector pump settings (they are different). My truck was stock 12 degrees injector pump timing, where as manual tranny with an intercooler can be set 17 to 19 degrees. Mine is set to 17 and it woke the engine up, better fuel economy and much cooler egt's.

The DT360 can makes a ton of power, but I was shooting for the middle ground between reliability and performance.

I think we have a Voith transmission in ours; either way it has 3 gears and its awful going up hills and high climb switchbacks, which are our regular roads.

Years ago, one of the diesel techs I saw on a regular basis at my old job told me that we would be better of swapping in a DT466 into that beast than doing anything with the transmission; that didn't quite make sense, but I know he must be talking from Navistar's recommdantion. However I think it was last year, I ran into some backwoods diesel guys who told me "oh man, that motor has lots of bolt on upgrades that would help!" and mentioned something about taking the air pump from a Cummins 6.5 that I liked the idea, but didn't make sense. I think a transmission upgrade isn't out of the question; for us volunteers, we would probably go find a nice 4 speed Allison automatic.
 

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