Ambulance – New Light Lenses

Hello! I just recently got all new light lenses for the outside of the ambulance. It has taken a while to put them all on, due to shipping times and other life factors, but we are finally done (mostly)! This is going to be a collection of before and after pictures, and a bunch of talking about the lenses. If you’d rather consume this content in a video format, you can check out my new YouTube video! 

Originally, since not a whole lot had been changed on the ambulance by the time I bought it, all of the light lenses on the outside were either white, red, or amber. Having red lights on your vehicle is illegal in most states. Even though I had never turned the red lights on and had no plans to, I still did not want to get pulled over and/or fined for still having red lights on my vehicle. The same goes for the decals as well, I did not want to be pulled over for trying to impersonate an ambulance or anything like that. However, that will be talked about in a different blog post coming later. 

Since I did want to keep the lights on the outside of the vehicle for a few reasons (they’re cool, I will end up using the lights as white lights eventually while camping, etc.), I wanted to switch all of the lenses to clear ones. This was becoming more and more urgent due to the fact that I wanted to take the ambulance on its first road trip soon. 

There ended up being one main obstacle to getting all new light lenses, and that was money. I researched the lenses for a long time only finding listings that were for a couple hundred dollars per light lens, which was seriously adding up fast. The ambulance had about 30 different light lenses I wanted to buy, so that would add up to almost $8,000 pretty quick. 

I started looking for clear light lenses when I first bought the ambulance, about 3 years ago, and could not find a single listing for lenses that were under $200. I felt pretty disheartened after that, and just started looking in earnest again recently, due to the road trip rapidly approaching. 

I was getting pretty discouraged and didn’t really know what to do, but I finally found a website that sold every single item on an ambulance, and the light lenses were much cheaper. I pretty much immediately purchased them, and got my light lenses a couple of weeks after that. 

It was such a relief to finally find this company, and I am so happy that I could find light lenses that were cheaper than the $200 that I thought was outrageous. They sent the lenses in about 4 boxes at different times, but all of them arrived before the trip which was great. 

I got new light lenses for the light bar in the front of the box, the red lights on the front of the engine bay, and all of the rectangular lights that go around the whole box. 

We did the rectangular lights first, and it honestly went pretty fast. I also really love how the new clear lenses look on the ambulance, and I am glad that I got replacements for all of the lenses and not just the red or amber ones. I would have liked to get new gaskets for these lights, but I don’t think I could afford that right now. Here are some before and after pictures for those:

The next part we did were the red lights on the front of the engine bay, which also went pretty fast, faster than the last ones. There were only four of these, so there is not much to say about them. However, like the other lights, I think it would have been ideal to also get new gaskets and all that for the lights since the rubber part is cracking a bit, but I don’t think I could afford that right now since ambulance parts are so expensive. Here are the before and after pictures of these lights:

The next lenses we replaced were in the light bar at the front of the box, and this was the only part we experienced problems during. My dad took the lenses to work to get them all cut to the right size, since they only come in one size, and I gave him measurements that were slightly too long. These arrived right before we had to leave, so we had to improvise something. We ended up just spray painting the outside of the old red light lenses black for the trip, and that still worked out alright. 

We are eventually going to cut the new light lenses to size, but we do not have the means to do that for at least another week. However, I definitely think the light bar looks good enough to not be mistaken for red lights. Here are the before and after pictures of the light bar:

Even though I did not get all of the lenses installed before the date of the road trip, I am still very happy with how they all turned out, and I think that once the ambulance is painted and all done on the outside, it will look very good. I also think that we will definitely have enough light on the outside of the ambulance while camping or at night or during whatever other situation I would like some light outside for. 

That is all the information I have for you guys today, thank you so much for reading! I post here on my blog every Monday and Thursday, and I also post on my YouTube channel every Thursday! Thank you for reading!