Truck 5/4 ton Chev 1976
 

Hi guys Just saved a Chev 5/4 from the scrap yard and seeing that it is in good condition we will be restoring the truck. From the paperwork we found it belonged to 1 Canadian Field Hospital and was last used on 7 Feb 1993. The truck had the Ambulance box removed to be installed on the LSVW.
Does anyone have a picture of the 5/4 Ambulance. WE have a CUCV ambulance and we know what they look like but the regular fForce 5/4 were different than the CUCV. Thanks

I have one at home (a photo that is), but am on the road until May 14th. If you don't get one by then I can help you out.

5/4 photo
 

thanksphoto thanks I will wait. We will be in France till the 19th May we are going too the Normandy Coast
Gilles

Lucky for you the CF was cheap with its commercial pattern vehicles. With a few exceptions, the standard GM/Chev parts catalogue will give you sll that you need.

I remember the interior was medium brown with brown vinyl seats and black floor mats. The chrome parts were there, just sandblasted and painted over. The SMP light switch was there, and the dome and dash lights were wired in, along with the usual headlights and BO ones.

There was a posting a few weeks ago from another MLU regular who found a 5/4 CP box without the truck underneath. You might be able to make a deal.

I have a van body on my 5/4 ton. I have seen an ambulance body on the loose but it has disappeared from the farmyard it was in. In fact, I was intently looking for it when I met up with a VIA train. But thats another story.

There were a lot of changes over the 5/4 ton's long service life. The factory brown mats were stripped out, floors painted in a special paint, and thin black rubber mats put in. Seats also changed from the two buckets over to a single bench seat as required. The SMP light switch Terry talked about did not control all the lights: The commercial light switch remained on the dash and controlled the interior lights under the dash. No dome lights on 5/4 tons.

Nice thing about the 5/4 ton is that body parts are still super cheap. Chevy made millions of this type truck with great interchangeability over a lot of years. The aftermarket suppliers are even remaking the plastic grills and the doeskin dashes.

Chevrolet CK20903 Ambulance
 

From 1981.

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e3...getown1981.jpg

...and the pioneer tools were behind the bench seat, strapped in with webbing through footman loops.

Ed's photo is of one before we put on the folding red cross covers. Seems to me we were installing those around 83 to 85 time period, but I can't say for certain. Not much red on the cross of that 5/4 ton.

Some pictures of our truck when we went to pick it up. We have since re-inflated the tires. Is pretty much complete except for the carb and the steering box. Nothing else has been touched.

If you want to stay authentic and are looking for fresh 9.50X16.5 tires, STA still makes them in the US. I just got back from the boarder with 4 of them. Nice aggressive tread pattrn, although the tires look a little thinner than the original goodyears...more like the cooper super tractions we used to get as replacement tires.

Get one of the guys to look up the CFR on the EDR viewer and see the history of this truck. Doesn't look that rusty considering it's age and that it's out east.

Thanks for the info rob. We will look at that when we start working on it in a month or so. The current tires on the truck are at 95%+, but sadly the side-walls are cracking from sitting in the sun all these years.

The truck will get new front fenders and a new hood. The floors are in excellent shape because it looks like they were replaced by the military before it was sent to surplus.

We are very surprised that the truck was not ripped apart. Usually these things get destroyed by the kids and other people (who take parts) when they sit in the back yard for many years. But this one was never touched. Even the seats are in good shape without a single rip. It still had the original paper in the windshield which stated the auction number and "......LSVW project" up in the right hand corner of the paper.

Here is a picture of the paperwork we found inside.

CFR: 76-28203

Would anyone happen to have a PDF copy of the 5/4ton manual, or a physical manual we could scan and put into PDF? Or even better, a copy we could buy (which we would also then scan so that others could get a hold of it)?

We are having a bit of a hard time locating one.

We want to start working on this truck soon, but would like to have the manual(s) to be sure of a couple things while putting it back together.