1968 Ambassador

[AZAL55]

I purchased a 68 Ambassador recently but I need to pull it from Chicago to western Colorado. I am replacing the tires and want to repack the bearings and replace the grease seals too. Don;t have any idea what axle is under this rig so I cant even order the correct seals. Who is the OEM axle provider? Part numbers? I looks like the old steel wheels too, I don't know if they are good or not. What kind of lug pattern should I be looking for as replacments, chevy, ford.....
Thank the stars for fourms like this....dealers won't even call you back when you have a old rig like this.

[Condoluminum]

Welcome to Forums, and congrats on your new project...

You might try Private Message to Shari or other members of VAC in Colorado (Search on "vac" and "Colorado" and a few other terms..). It helps to get manual or documentation, as there wasn't much in the late 60's, and they may help there as well...

[crispyboy]

Pull one side apart and take the bearings and grease seals to a good autoparts store and they can match them up.
As for the wheels - it would depend on how rusty they are if they need replacement. Wheels are measured by the number of lug nuts, space between the lug nuts (example 6 on 5.5 would be 6 lug nuts on 5 1/2" centers), width of the rim and of course size of the tire. A place like inland rv or outofdoors mart or a good tire shop could get you new wheels if needed.

You just need to talk to the right people.

[byamcaravanner]

Congrats on your purchase! I ran into the same thing when I recently purchased my '67 Ambassador from a seller in Atlanta... the big service places and even the local A/S service center don't answer the phone and won't return your call. I was lucky to find a small service place the was willing to work with the seller on dropping off the trailer and checked the whole thing out to make it safe for the trip back to WI.

Best advice I can give you is to call every RV type service center you can get a number for... Ask a lot of questions about who might be able to do the work... it's very likely that there is someone in the Chicago area that will get your trailer checked out... the problem is finding this place.

Good luck, be patient and persistant.

[yukionna]

Originally Posted by AZAL55

I purchased a 68 Ambassador recently but I need to pull it from Chicago to western Colorado. I am replacing the tires and want to repack the bearings and replace the grease seals too. Don;t have any idea what axle is under this rig so I cant even order the correct seals. Who is the OEM axle provider? Part numbers? I looks like the old steel wheels too, I don't know if they are good or not. What kind of lug pattern should I be looking for as replacments, chevy, ford.....
Thank the stars for fourms like this....dealers won't even call you back when you have a old rig like this.

Congrats on your new purchase! We just picked up a '61 Ambassador and had to go thru the same things you are to prep the trailer for travel. For the seals, we just popped one out and took it to the auto parts store. For the wheels, ours were in really bad shape (i.e., very rusty) but the tire dealer wire brushed the rust off for no additional charge. He was able to install three out of the four new tires on the existing wheels without tubes. The fourth wheel needed a tube. I can't imagine that your wheels could be in worse shape than ours were in -- our trailer sat unused for over 25 years in a field and had sunk up to the hubs in the dirt.