1969 E151 Ambulance Van in Ohio

[e151]

Hi everyone, I'm writing from Southwest Ohio, in the Dayton area.

I have a Craigslist van that we bought about 7 years ago when we flew out to the Bellingham area. We then drove up to Mount St. Helens, across the Canadian Rockies, and back home with this thing. I replaced the engine seal, and this year finally had a new clutch installed, along with new wheel bearings and a few other things that really tightened up the steering. (I had about 2.5-3" of movement in the steering wheel before it would actually start changing direction)

My kids and I use it as a camper van mostly, although once in a while it also works as a truck for me.

[Mancar1]

Welcome aboard from Tehama County, Ca.
Interesting ride.

[lennyp]

from Massachusetts.

[1972hiboy]

I know you had a post somewhere where you said that you were told it was an ambulance at one time. They usually had a camper top like addition to the roof to acomondate the lights and extra equipment. The floors are almost all the time different from a production van. Normal ambulance packages have a special floor that has to be installed by ford once the order is sent in. the floors are flat with no provisions to bolt down the factory seats. Most of the van ambulances ive seen from this era where 3/4-1 ton chassis to handle the weight of extra equipment, personel, and the need to handle abuse of typical emergency vehicle driving conditions i.e hard accelerations , hard braking ect. In most cases retired ambulances are in almost every way different from the normal production econoline's because they are special ordered and special built for that purpose. I would say if the floor has the provisions for factory bench/captains chairs and the roof looks un-altered it was most likely a normal production van. Some rural areas did have kinda make-shift ambulances but those were mostly 4x4 trucks with a coach ambulance body bolted on the frame instead of a bed or box. there are always some exceptions to the rules so take this information as just that, information based on experience.

BTW welcome to the site!

[fireguywtc]

from Texas!

[Madman]

Colorado

[iwhodat]

from the Big Easy! Awesome van, man! I'd love to have one like it.