Ambulance – Recent Sticker Pulling

Hello! This past weekend, my dad and I did some more work on the ambulance! We actually took some more stickers off since it was a relatively warm day for the beginning of winter, and it went pretty well. I do wish we had more time to do it, but that is my fault for not bringing the ambulance home sooner. I did think that we wouldn’t be able to take any more stickers or adhesive off until the winter was over, but we actually did. 

The day was, however, filled with a few minor obstacles that made it a lot more difficult to be motivated and also cut into the already limited time we had. Right as I was leaving, my car wouldn’t start so I had to jump the battery. That was a great start to the day, and then right as I got into the van and started it, I realized I needed to get gas. I knew that this would mean me spending over a hundred dollars on diesel since the ambulance has a 37 gallon tank and the last time we filled it up, it cost almost $125. 

I had enough fuel to drive around for half an hour to get the engine all warm and also charge the battery, so I did that first. Getting into the gas station and finding a spot and maneuvering around correctly to not hit anything is always a challenge, but was a lot easier this time since I have gotten a lot more used to driving it. I checked and double checked and triple checked that I was putting diesel into it, since I am terrified of putting gas in it even though I know I wouldn’t do that. 

It did cost about $140, as you can see in the picture, to fill up my tank, and I got almost 34 gallons of diesel. It didn’t take as long as I thought it would, and I was yet again on my way home. When I got home, I backed the ambulance into the driveway with the help of my dad and we started prepping everything to get to work. 

We both had to change, he grabbed the drills and heat gun for the stickers, and I got my GoPro and set that up to take a timelapse of what we were doing. It thankfully wasn’t that cold even in the shade, and that was really helpful. 

I started with a new technique that I thought might work. I got a scrubbing sponge and sprayed the adhesive that was still leftover from last time and let it sit. I let it sit for a while and reapplied it several times, and the sponge did not work at all whatsoever, so I scrapped that idea. 

Since we hadn’t done this for so long, probably over a year, I had to relearn how to use the drill with the whizzy wheel attachment, but it was pretty easy. I thought at first that the leftover exposed adhesive from the last time we were doing this was impossible to get off, but later learned that I just had to wait until the whizzy wheel got hot enough to actually work at that adhesive. 

My dad uses the heat gun to heat up adhesive in other areas, and then uses a scraper to scrape under it and peel it off gradually. He worked on this for a lot of the other blue asterisk on the other side of the back that I was working on, and that was working relatively well. Out of all of the stickers on the ambulance, the blue asterisks were most definitely the most difficult to get off for some reason, and so was the adhesive under it. 

I did end up finding out that it was relatively easy to just use the whizzy wheel straight on the sticker and it would go straight through both the sticker and the adhesive. I started using that on the blue asterisks, and that worked pretty well, but there was a lot of rubber dust flying around from the whizzy wheel which was not very fun to deal with. 

We also got some of the other stickers off that were on the sides and some other ones on the back, and every little bit we get off feels like another little bit of progress that we are making now and getting closer to our goal. I am so excited to finally be done with these stickers soon and be able to work on other, equally as frustrating things. 

By the time the sun was setting, we had gotten off all of the blue, and most of the adhesive from the back of the ambulance. We were really happy with this since, as I mentioned, these were the most difficult parts to get off. I am really happy that we actually made some progress and that we are closer to our goal, even if we only worked on them for a little bit compared to how much we could have worked on them if I had brought the ambulance home sooner. 

With the way I have to hold the drill to get the stickers off, it gives me blisters on my hand. I don’t really mind this, and kind of view it as a reminder of how hard I am working and what I am sacrificing to really make this dream come to life. I don’t mind a little pain if I am going to eventually have a completely finished converted ambulance to live in. 

After we were finished cleaning up everything outside, it was dark and we were hungry. My mom had made a really nice dinner for us so we ate that, and then I took the ambulance back to where it lives and picked up my car again. It did end up starting which was good, since I was worried I would have to jump it again and then get a new battery, but that wasn’t the case. 

I did take my car’s battery out at the end of the night so we could charge it and put it back in in the hopes that I would not need to get a new battery just yet, but we will see how that ends up soon. I ended up going to the gym afterwards, and thought about all of the other things I could do to the van soon and fantasized about living in it. 

Thank you all so much for reading my blog post! I really appreciate each and every one of you who is interested in my journey! I will see you guys in the next one!