Found a 2003 7.3L E450 Ambulance with 96K on the clock. It was relieved of duty Oct 2012 and maintenance was done through the county with Ford. The seller says it runs and drives very good and needs no mechanical work.

It does not have the actual ambulance part (rear). In other words it is just the cab and frame in the rear.

I need a transmission and some injectors for my 2001 F250 7.3L truck but maybe I could find a F450 cab and bed (or make a flat bed) etc. for this one?

He is asking $2400 but I think i can get it for $1900 or so.

The parts should pretty much be interchangeable with my truck correct?

Thanks for any input you can provide.

 

Lots and lots and lots of idle time on that ambulance. Keep that in mind. Parts should be interchangeable. No intercooler, but it does have a little nicer turbo. Injectors will swap out, but as mentioned, they've got lots and lots of hours on them.

 

If you want it just for parts maybe. Remember 2003 has PMR's. so if you are interested in using the motor upgrade to forged rods. I would buy it for that price.

 

So idle time hammers injectors? Was hoping to use them as cores for upgrades/rebuilds while my truck is still on the road.

What is the diff in the Turbo's?

Anything else I should be looking for?

 

Yep agreed with above. Extreme amounts of idle time. Plus no matter how cold or how hot they get started up and drove hard right out of the gate. I would buy for a project in a min. I hope it works out for ya. Also think everything is used hard. Tranny, brakes, electrical system and etc. For the turbo differences if my memory serves me the exhaust housing is larger because of the no intercooler to keep the egts down. Let us know if you buy it with some pics

 

Should have a larger alternator also, I'd save that for sure.

 

Turbo has a 1.15 exhaust housing and a larger turbine wheel. Great towing upgrade. No waste gate either. Need an exhaust adapter to install. ($80)

 

Id go for that at what hes asking, It would be a good spare motor at that. The local FD used to bring their ambulance by for its 3 month service. It was a 2002 E350 7.3 with about 45,000 miles on it at the time. The unit only had some 1,800 hours on it! The City has contracts with local ambulance sub contracting companies so it never saw much use. However, when it needed to be used it was used hard! When they would come in Ford stated that idle time on diesels is equal to 6 miles of driving wear and tear. So say that ambulance has 10,000 hours on it that's really only 60,000 miles worth of wear and tear, add that to the 96,000 miles you have roughly 156,000 miles of total wear and tear on the motor. The ambulance should have 2 alternators as well. If you can figure the hours on the unit then you can get a better idea of what your looking at. Still at that price It would make a fun project, I wouldn't pass it up. You might be able to find a box for it ant flip it for a nice profit!

 

There are caps made for covering the back of the cab as well, or may be find a used cargo box for it and flip it that way.....

 

The engine is probably set up for dual alternators. Great source for wiring an alt bracket if you want to upgrade to duals.
I'd buy it if I had the money.
Use the injectors for core, add the dual alt setup to my truck, swap turbos, put my injectors from my truck (when rebuilds care back) back in the engine and rebuild or sell the engine and trans (axles, wheels, fuel tank, anything else I could) from the ambulance to recover the cost of the original purchase. Sell anything you don't or can't use.

 

I'd buy it for that and convert it to run on vegetable oil.

 

That's not a bad idea, I believe they have duel tanks. If you decide to do that do your research it is very easy to have problems running on Veg if you don't follow directions. Been there done that.

 

If it has air ride rear springs, the air ride and axle are worth $$$.

 

Here are some pics.

So are the frames for the E450 and F250 the same. In other words if I find a F Series cab+bed will it bolt up to this monster?

 

I'd do it in a heartbeat. Yes, it has more than likely been used hard and put away wet - but its a 7.3, it can take it. Plenty of these engines have seen this type of service for 250k miles or more. I know our local guys HATED to see the 7.3's go and the 6.0's come in... (btw, they have 4wd med. duty trucks now)

At that price, you could sell the engine/trans/rear axle and break even pretty easy and get a few $100 for the remaining bits as scrap metal.

The trans is a direct swap - no issues there. The best part is ya get to DRIVE it before the swap, unlike most used transmissions you could buy.

Not sure the SD parts are a direct bolt-on for that chassis. Depending on what ya need, I'd consider slapping a flat bed on that sucker and driving the wheels off of it (or flip it!).

Yes, there are more ways to screw up a WVO conversion than there are ways to do it right. I have 280k miles between my (2) PSD's on the high cholesterol diet and I've helped LOTS of people fix problem-prone POS 'conversion' attempts. You'll need a bit more than the OE dual fuel tanks though... The first problem is those tanks are steel and VO & steel don't get along very well.

Take a close look at the wiring. I imagine with the copious amounts of extra stuff that has been removed, there is plenty of room for stuff to have been hacked up.

Its so funny people make a big deal out of PMR's. Not many folks will ever build an engine that 'requires' stronger rods... A 400RWHP 7.3 is a hell of a lot of fun to drive (that is 2x stock RWHP!! ) and with good tuning is well within the capability of PMR's.