But...in an E450 Van chassis.

Picked up this 1999 E450XL 7.3 ambulance with 35k miles yesterday in NH and drove it home to VA. The truck performed flawlessly. I must say that it has the smoothest cruise control disconnect of all the cars and trucks that I have owned in the past 30 years The one thing that I got done before picking it up was an oil change though it was not due according to the PO who had done it less than 500 miles ago, but it has been a while since that was done. Other than that, it starts fine and purrs nicely. Being an ambulance, I read somewhere that they are detuned compared to the regular trucks. Is that true? This is the heaviest unladen vehicle that I have owned and it took a few miles to get used to the additional width from the DRW and box. But overall, it was a very pleasant ride back home. Plans are to gut the ambulance module and convert it into a tiny home for travels.








There are a few spots of rust that I will deal with soon. The good thing is that the rusty areas are in mostly replaceable parts. The one area that might need some fabrication/welding to replace is the rear end piece where the aluminum bumper steps for the ambulance are mounted. I plan to first clean it up to see how bad the rust is and worst case, cut if off and get a custom bumper made. I need it to install a hitch to pull my motorcycle trailer. But, first thing to fix is the fuel filler neck. It drips a few ounces of fuel only when filling up.

 

Vans are detuned due to not having a innercooler. My 99 e350 says 215hp on the valve cover. I think the same year f350 is 235hp stock.

 

If you replace the bulbs in the top exterior lights with modern LEDs,
you will have quite the lighted up area for night time camping enjoyment.

Obviously, the Red Lenses have to replaced with clear ones.

Plus, adding an Awning or two can be quite beneficial.

 

Good suggestions. Ideally I'd like to remove them all, close them all off and replace with high power LED lights on the corners only. There are also lights on the fenders that will leave big holes if left uncovered. I am also toying with the idea of doing a facelift to a 2008+ style. But all that will be part of the evolution of the plans. For now, I plan to just get white lenses to replace the red and amber lights.

 

strip that thing out, replace the lead acid batteries for the inverters with LiFePo4's and put 3 or 4 300 watt panels on the roof and you will have a 4 season camper from hell! Only way it could be any better would be if it was 4WD.

louver the hood and put a intercooler mounted to the inside of the hood with an E fan to get air flow! then retune with PHP and lte the good times roll!


Edited as this was my 1000th post... what a cool thread to achieve that on!

 

Most van guys that add the intercooler swap the front end with a 08 and up. 08 hood, fenders and bumper. It has a lot more space or more space for the intercooler itself. What it doesn’t add is room for the intercooler cac pipes. If you have seen one mounted to the backside of the hood post a link to it.

 

Welcome back to the eternal 7.3!

For the fuel inlet I'd say junkyard part then clean/paint the "new" one.

Low miles! Dare I ask hours?

 

My '99 F-450 did the same thing when I first got it last year. It leaked a few ounces of fuel when the pump kicked off when the tank was full. The problem is the hoses were dry rotted and leaked. I was able to wire wheel and repaint the filler neck and the straight metal pieces of pipe outside of the frame rails, replace the vent and fill hoses, and replace the hose clamps and now it works perfectly and doesn't leak. If I remember correctly it took me three feet of 3/4" vent hose and three feet of 1 1/2" wire-reinforced fill hose to do the job, so it wasn't bad at all.

Custom fabricated bumpers are neat and pretty common on commercial vehicles. My F-450 wears a take-off fabricated hitch plate from a scrapped dump truck as its hitch and "bumper" as I got my truck as a cab chassis with no bed. It is extremely stout and works very well.

 

Thanks. I plan to take the fuel inlet off, wire wheel it to figure out how badly it is rusted and then either replace it or just repaint and reinstall. There is no hour meter, so I don't know the idle hours. Ignorance is bliss

Good suggestion. I had the same thoughts as well. There's still a half tank of diesel and this project will be delayed until I can get it low enough to safely bring down that tank. I don't have a container to store a lot of diesel, just a 5gal can and not planning to buy a larger container for a one off task.

I have a good friend who is a fabricator. I will be running a few different ideas with him to determine cost of building all new from scratch vs. finding something from a scrapyard. This is low on the priority and will probably get done much later.

 

Neat project - keep us updated!

 

The fuel level for a full tank at least on my aft-of-axle tank was even with the bottom of the hose barbs on the tank. My tank was completely full when I replaced the hoses and there was maybe a tablespooon of diesel fuel that slopped out when I took the hoses off to replace them. I did not have to drop the tank, I was able to easily get at the hose clamps and hoses with the tank in place.

 

When driving between 45-55mph, I feel sort of a pressure imbalance inside the cab. I can feel the change of pressure in my ears. Once I get below/above that speed range, it seems to be normal and smooth riding. While driving down from NH to VA, I thought it was probably due to injectors sticking or bad /gelled fuel or due to the studded snow tires in the rear that I got this ambulance with. At the first fuel stop, I picked up some Howes diesel treatment and added about 32 oz to the tank. That did not seem to change anything. Then yesterday, I had regular tires installed in the rear. And yet, the situation remains the same.

What to look for next? Could this be caused by any pressure leaks?

 

we have Studded Snow tires for my daughter's US Mail delivery car, they make a heck of a noise, but being balanced, they do not hop.

 

I'd look at the weatherstripping and look for any loose or cracked grommets in the firewall. I am not terribly familiar with the vans specifically but your doghouse cover probably has some sort of a gasket or weatherstripping, check it too. My '99 had shot door weatherstripping, the PCM grommet was hanging from the PCM cable six inches inside of the engine compartment (a previous owner had replaced the IDM so they probably had the PCM connector off to troubleshoot, and it's fiddly to get all of that back on correctly, so they didn't), the transfer case shift boot was loose and the transmission shifter boots were torn (ZF6.) It was real loud and hot inside of the truck going down the highway and did give an effect somewhat similar to a window being rolled down with a pressure difference as well. It is much nicer now that I got those fixed.

 

I will look into the weatherstrip. But I must say that this interior is quieter than my previous 3 Excursions And yes, it sort of feels like the windows may be slightly cracked open to cause that pressure difference. However I have only been able to reproduce this effect in that speed range.