My 1966 chrysler town and country Ambulance

[John ED Renstrom]

now then all the FW and the W stretchers used the same mount position. so if that set of holes were to low you would need something like you did to mount the bar onto the bar would have been attach straight up and down not at a angle. what they most likely had was a triangle piece folded over bolted to the angled wheel well that would keep the bar mounted square with the floor. you have just done it at a bigger scale. spacing is what you want to watch. you get them two far apart and you may run out of room to adjust the gurney for spacing front to rear. the slid mount will let you move the bar up and down for the small variation in the cots. so now it this old box doesn't crash again on my here are some pictures. on the first pay no attention to that bar as I built it to side mount the 28 in that 72 CB. the 28 should have the floor mount. I don't want to cut up the floor for something I have temporary there for the last 5 years. but the slid mount I talking about is attached to the wheel well. this allows for up and down moment of the bar. note the spacing. now we go to the 67 superior. notice the same slid mount notice the spacing. they are right at the same height vertical also. this one 90s gurney shows the amount of room you have to hook the bar on.

as for correct gurney offered that knowledge is impotent for History. but I bet there were way more rigs sold without a gurney then with one. they were offered, but most places used the one out of there older car if it was good. as a cost saving. that's why the manufactures made sure they swapped.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

just for interest I measure the 53. right at the 3 foot mark comes out were they would be drilling threw the wheel well it's self which would be a invitation for disaster. so you can see they positioned the rear mount just behind the wheel well. eh front guy got it done with only three holes looks like a little more trouble on the rear. three hols do lineup though

 

[Clay Sellick]

Update 15/05/18

Fixed my spare tire holder this week. The bottom was rusted out so I bought a trailer fender that fit in the hole perfect. I also had fabricated a small repair panel for my lower quarter panel. All of this I welded in and then painted. To finish it I covered most of it with tar. Turned out not too bad. The red is a little brighter than the rest but I'll fix that later. I just received my new master cylinder , carb and centerdome. I'll get my mechanic to put them on when he does my brakes on Monday. Hopefully after that it will be inspected and ready to rock. I think I'm going to get a custom plate. I'm thinking drSpud(was bought in pei, whole island grows potatoes. Let me know what you think.

 

[Clay Sellick]

 

[Paul Steinberg]

Don't forget that your car should have riveted linings... Also, some of the linings are not correct in the primary and secondary lining lengths, so check your service manuals for specifications. Seems that the new shoe remanufacturers are not paying attention to important details. If the primary shoe and the secondary shoe don't have the proper length, it can cause some problematic stopping. Compare the old shoes with the new shoes, and make sure that they are the same.

 

[Kurt Arends]

...................assuming that the old shoes were correct.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

Looking good. But whats the green putty looking stuff for I never seen that before! But this is what it takes to get one back on the road you need to think out side the box. When replacement parts are just not there.

 

[Clay Sellick]

Sent the car to get the breaks done and carb installed. Hopefully in a week from now I'll be driving it.

 

[Clay Sellick]

Heres Something cool i though i would share. Jean Marc dugas just sent me this via work email. I don't know how he found it but I'm gratefully. Now with permission from the funeral home that ran it, I can recreate the graphics!

 

[Bill Marcy]

I like that Chrysler Clay, she is looking fine!

 

[Clay Sellick]

Update 28/06/18

Hey guys, thought I'd give an update. The car ended up needing a little more than I thought. There was a part of the frame that had to be fixed. Also, more break components had to be replaced. Ended up another week in the shop. The car did finally get finished and was drivable. Unfortunately, I ran into another problem. My insurance(cooperators) did not want to insure my car due to my age and it's age, even though I never had an accident, have been with them for 3 years, and had both my trucks insured with them. No other insurance company's were keen on the idea, but I did end up getting it insured with vienneau insurance, but I had to give them the trucks as well . I'm now spending 50$ less with them a month than with coop. After that, i finally was able to drive it, it worked great. Drove it for 3 days without and issue. I took it in for an oil change at pro lube in moncton. Drove it all day, then the engine started ticking. Checked the oil, no oil...at all. Not impressed. I filled it up with oil, no leaks. The ticking stopped after that but the car was not working good at all after that. I thought I cocked it for sure. Checked it once I got home, I noticed a vacuum plug just was not there. Plugged that, car works great again. I'm not sure if the lube people had something to do with that as well as it worked great before them. Now it's fine but my siren stopped working. Well figure out what caused that.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

You'll get the bugs worked out as you drive it.

 

[Richard Vyse]

Awesome ambulance . Me experience as soon as you get one thing fixed, you guessed it, something else goes awry. Part of being a classic car owner.

 

[Tim Prieur]

Well done Clay. Every time you face another issue try and gain some comfort you are preserving a special piece of ambulance production history in Canada.

 

[Clay Sellick]

Update 04/08/18, Hell Week

Hello again guys. I've been meaning to put this update out for a while but just haven't found the time until now. A lot has happened since the last update, none of which is very good...but we're continuing forward by Jesus! When I last left you. I had just picked the car back up from the mechanic and had been driving it around working out the bugs. I was getting ready for the Big car show, The Atlantic Nationals. Well, the nationals came. I fixed my siren and was very hyped to use it the nationals is a 5 day event, with the last 2days being the main show. I was driving the car to the first day of festivities after filling it up full of fuel. I pulled out of the gas station.....and the gas tank fell out the back. I was able to pull off into a side road, it's a good thing this was not at highway speeds or it would have been a BBQ. All my gas spilled over the road, not good. My mechanic said to take it to the local rad and gas tank repair shop to get it fixed. I took it there,they said they could fix it for friday but it would be 1600$. I wanted to be in the show so bad I agreed. Friday came, they did fix it but in the process clogged the fuel pump. I had to tow it home. I still had hope for making the main show, so I bought a universal electric fuel pump as no one had one for my car. Me and my father hooked up the pump to what w thought was keyed power. The pump would turn on sometimes but would not others. We could not start the car. What was happening was that we had hooked it up to a circuit with a resistor, so when we first turn the key, the pump recieved full power but when the resistor heated up, the pump would not receive enough power to run. By the time i figured this out, the show was done and I had replaced almost every electronic component. Anyways, the car works now, but that's why I call that week, He'll week. Now I have new issues. My alternator stopped charging and I figured out I have some major holes in my floor I need to fix. My carpet was always wet but I thought it was a leak from the roof. No room leak, floor leak. I did successfully install a colt, pressure and temp gauge.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

What did they do for 1600? But remember this if you have to push things to do a event stop. You will be far better off taking part with out the car and you wallet will thank you.

When you do a repair do it right that way you move the car forward to what it was instead of creating a whole lot more things to fix.

 

[Bill Marcy]

I feel for you Clay, I have been there and done that, too. It is all part of classic car ownership. As long as the positives are more frequent than the negatives, I guess it is okay.

 

[Clay Sellick]

What did they do for 1600? But remember this if you have to push things to do a event stop. You will be far better off taking part with out the car and you wallet will thank you.

When you do a repair do it right that way you move the car forward to what it was instead of creating a whole lot more things to fix.

They patched the gas tank, new straps, new filler neck and reinforced the strap mounts. They did a good job, is it 1600$ good? I don't think so, but I "needed" it for the show. If I knew that I would have struggled with the other issues, I would have drove it with a Jerry can gas tank to the show

 

[Clay Sellick]

Update 12/07/19
Hello guys. Thought I would post about the upgrades that have happened since the last post, I believe it has been over a year now. A boatload has happened to it since then. First off, I repaired the floor last year. The front driver's side and the trans tunnel were the worst off. I had to custom make that as there are no patch panels available. Anyways, that was done last year. I did not put the carpet back as I still have a leaking issue. I received lots of cool equipment from Jean mark Dugas for the old girl. He has lots of interesting things tucked away. Most of the big stuff happened this year starting around may. First off, I made a new floor in the rear with in floor compartments. I had to guesstimate what it would have been like. The previous owner only had some plywood covering the stretcher area. I wanted to be able to lay on the stretcher comfortably and not fall through the floor so I made it all in steel. It actually turned out quite nice, very strong.

Next, I fixed the rear tailgate hinge area as it way rotten. While doing this, I noticed the bottom of the tailgate was rotten so I fixed it as well.

This is the point where **** got expensive. For some reason I thought it would be alright to leave the rear window in the tailgate as I fixed it. This was a mistake. Once I was done fixing the rust, I pressed my button to roll the window up. It came out in pieces. The window proved to be not only be hard to find, but quite expensive to replace. It took me a full month before I could find a window( was in ontario). I bought 2 so I could have a spare. Both windows shipped ended up being 1000$ That was saddening. I installed a radio back in the car. Once that was taken care of, my 1600$ gas tank started to leak, was not happy. They did fix it again but charged me labour as it was only warrantied for 6 months, I guess...Anyways, I did some more replacing of minor parts, made sure it was ship shape, the drove it to quebec city for my first pcs meet in June. Car worked great there and back, it does burn quite a bit of oil but the way she goes.

I met Martin Harvey and a few other interesting cats. Beautiful cars they had there. I did find it funny that people were still asking if my car was ecto one at the show, because a ecto 1 replica was only a stones throw away! Just wild I tell you. After that show, I was finally able to make it to the nationals. This was 1 week ago.

Always a fun time. I did however find out I need a new rad. There was a couple really hot days during the show (40). My car was not happy about this and overheated. I was able to mitigate this by pulling the thermostat and putting a pusher fan. It survived the show, but now I have a aluminum rad and high flow water pump on the way for it. Last major thing I had done was get the graphics redone for the car. I just got the car back yesterday. I got Brian hansen from herritage signs to do it for me.

He did a fantastic job. It's fairly close to the original design but with little differences here and there. Could not be happier with the result. If people say it's the ghostbusters car now they are just being dumb. Anyways, that's most of all the new stuff I can think of. I still have lots of work to do but it is really shaping up.

 

[John ED Renstrom]

That is the way to do it. Fix one thing at a time in steps. Most of us learned the hard way to take it all apart. Or risk more doing more damage them we were trying to correct.