We all need a special rig to do everything we want it to. For some, that means a newer vehicle. Yet others, Like JD Scott, like to rock it old school. So, when he was looking for a vehicle to pull a travel trailer across the states with his girlfriend, he knew he wanted something old. One look at the images and you quickly realize this Cummins-swapped ambulance is something old.
“I looked at old Brinks trucks, school buses, military trucks, etc. I checked out everything that was old and interesting,” says JD. “Then I found this 1962 ambulance up in Washington state. The ambulance was running and was motivated by a 350 engine with a four-speed stick and a 5.13 Detroit Locker rearend. The top speed was about 55 mph at nearly 3,000 rpm if I remember right. It would climb anything, but slowly.”
The ambulance might not be the prettiest on the show field, but it is definitely one of the coolest with the 12-valve swap.
That ambulance started life as a simple panel-side truck and was taken to a coachbuilder in Memphis, Tennessee, and converted to an ambulance early on. That ambulance was built to pick up busted loggers in the mountains of Washington state back in the ’60s. JD bought that truck for $4,500.00 and drove it back to California.
JD was happy with his purchase, but did have plans to make some serious changes. “I did some research and learned that a ’93 through ’97 Dodge 3500 had the platform I was looking for,” JD states.
He found a 1995 3500 truck with the drivetrain/chassis he needed. “I knew the automatic transmission was bad in the Dodge, but the 450,000-mile engine fired right up,” JD quips.
After He got the Dodge home, he sold the bad transmission and swapped in an NV4500. To handle the shifts, he sourced a used pedal assembly from a manual Dodge off of Craigslist. “After I got the Dodge running with the stick, I took it on a few test drives and I knew I was going to do the swap,” says JD.
JD didn’t get carried away with engine mods for the 12-valve, but he did upgrade the engine by installing the killer dowl pin repair, removing the silencer ring from the turbo, and he ran a 4-inch straight pipe for an exhaust.
A buddy of his has a lift in his backyard, and with his buddy and car club members’ help, they had both bodies off of their frames on the first day. “I sold the cab and bed from the Dodge and we then cut the mounts off of the Dodge frame and rearranged them to accept the Chevy C30 body.”
Once the C30 body was mounted on the frame, JD was still welding his fender flare mounts on the Cummins swapped “Manbuhlance” when he and his girlfriend started their cross-country trip. “That truck pulled our travel trailer across and back without a whimper,” JD assures. JD’s Cummins swapped hauler proves that you can accomplish just about anything if you have a good support system and friends and family that are willing to get dirty with you are priceless.
Do you want to see more Reader’s Rigs? This column is dedicated to showcasing what you guys and girls are driving and I need your help to give the Reader’s Rigs the props they deserve. If you would like to share yours, I want to hear about it — I can never get enough. If you want to see your truck featured as a Reader’s Rig, send a few pictures of your truck showing the engine, interior, and exterior, along with all of the pertinent information about it and I’ll make you internet famous. You can send your submissions to dieselarmy@powerautomedia.com.
