My on-going in-service Impala project

kadetklapp

kadetklapp

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May 21, 2010
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Indiana
This is my part-time "take-home" car. 2002 Impala 9C1. Bought from the original agency in 2008, this car has about 90,000 miles and serves a very small town near me. I am the chief deputy marshal and we share the car when we are on-call. I've taken it upon myself to try and correct the horrid installation job done by the previous department and an installer in Indianapolis.


The car has a Code 3 Excalibur, possibly the most worthless lightbar in the world. If you want a bar like this, just get an MX-7000. These Excaliburs make no sense. They suck amps and look stupid. But it's all I've got to work with. To supplement the bar, I added a Sho-Me Rear-Ender-Ender, and four three inch LED's by the inch to the rear lower section. This way on traffic stops I can back the rotators all the way off and not be working the charging system as hard. Eventually I plan to upgrade the bar with a set of 2100 lenses and remove all rotating parts and go with LEDs and halogen flashers along the bottom. Siren is a chinese cjb100h. The car has two Sho-me strobe packs. Half the strobe cables on this car lead to nowhere, it seems. One doesn't even work no matter what I try. The car has two federal strobes in the back window, two in the taillights, two in the corner lights, and on the dash it has a VERY old gen 2 LED stick by some unknown manufacturer. It's more of a melted glob from sitting in the sun for so long. I can't remove it or the dash may fall apart. I installed a knock-off TIR3 dual under the RVM.


Here is what I found when I popped the console open to replace a switchbox that literally CAUGHT THE F*CK ON FIRE while on patrol one night-


ai256.photobucket.com_albums_hh192_kadetklapp_console1.jpg


ai256.photobucket.com_albums_hh192_kadetklapp_console3.jpg


Here it is after I buttoned it up and replaced the chinese switchbox with one from our 94 CVPI


ai256.photobucket.com_albums_hh192_kadetklapp_console2.jpg


More to come as I make changes.
 
WOW... I'm looking forward to seeing what all it takes to fix it and what it'll look like after. Good luck!
 
glad to see an old relm like that still in service.


why 2 switchboxes?
 
Man I feel for you. I wonder how the cinaese siren sounds. I wish you luck and I hope your dept. gets the money to buy you a new CVPI.
 
My God! I feel sorry for you man. Maybe you can garner up some donations of equipment or use govdeals.com (or the like) to get cheap equipment or a dept can donate.


I know the MX7000 sucks alot of power but I like it as far as a halogen bar goes, especially with fast rotators or rotators/strobes.
 
Not sure why there were ever two switchboxes put in this car. Since that photo was taken, we had a new Motorola XTL1500 installed that I procurred via a JAG grant. I kept the old RELM as a back-up. It works VERY well and has lots of power. The town this car serves is in a remote part of the county.


The smaller switchbox was originally set up to send 12v to the radios and siren. I went a step further and hooked it up to an aux 3 outlet 12v box for two radars and the mobile computer. That way I don't have the ashtray slid out with a bunch of cords running everywhere. Only thing we use the two outlets in the ashtray for our the GPS if we have it with us or to charge our phones.


So when you get in the car, you flip on the four switches which power the radios, siren, and outlets. Most of this stuff is low draw.


There had been a chicom switchbox in place of the Federal Signal one. Like I mentioned earlier, it caught on fire on night when I activated the alley lights and takedowns. The Federal box came from our old Crown Vic (I have shown it in another thread) and was in great shape.


The chicom siren sounds terrible. It has adjustable volume for the PA, which in turn for some reason adjusts the volume for the siren. If it gets bumped accidentally, you could end up driving code with the siren on, and you can hear it, but no one else can. I plan to replace it with a Federal PA20 which is going to be removed from our old Crown Vic. It works great, even though it has spent the last two winters covered in snow (broken out window in the car, stored outside!).


The big thing right now is trying to get the money together to do a 2100-esqe retrofit. I'd like to use some knock-off TIR6 modules on all four corners of the lower deck, and some knock-off tir3 or tir4 modules to populate the inner sections of the bar, and cap it off with 2100 lenses. This would be a very easy job, it's just expensive. The radio was bought on grant and I had to beg for match money from my prosecutor and local businesses. I have no beef whatsoever with MX-7000s, I just don't like Excaliburs. I've got a stack of MX-7000s in my garage at home, one serves as a liquor shelf behind my bar. I love them. Ran one on my show car for a long time. They are amp suckers though.
 
Check with greg @ micromanindustries.com he does Generation 3 TIR lightsticks and for a freaking awsome price ! And that will get you covered for the 2100 project.


As for the siren, man look for a pa300 on here for like 50 bucks.


Can one of the installer's on here help this guy out with a little time donation...holy shit man !
 
Do post more pics of this car if at all possible. I think this is something we can all learn from.
 
I would get rid of all China stuff. Its not worth getting burned alive. China one to Dispatch. lol A US siren is not that expensive . You can get a new siren on Sirnenet.com for $100, or you can find a used one on ELB for cheaper. Ive never seen a PD car with a china siren .
 
I'm going to move the Federal siren over so I think we will be in good shape on that pretty soon. I'll get some more pics when I get a chance.
 
Also, I have a "wanted" thread going to try an locate a gently used Sound-Off Ticket lamp. Multi-mode w/ Red LEDS. Sounds dumb looking for used, but I'm trying to save a few bucks and I'm donating this to the car with my own $$.
 
Yanked the siren out of the old car today. Federal Signal PA-300. A little sun baked, but it works just fine. I was hoping this was going to be a simple swap, but this PA-300 has a ton of wires coming out of it! I think there are more wires coming out of this thing than what came out of my Mastercom! Time to download some wiring diagrams I suppose.
 
ark_firefighter said:
Crap...I just deleted my PA300 Downloads...but you can cut it down to 4 wires...pos neg spkr spkr and your set...

Heres the online diagram http://www.galls.com/documents/SK023_PA300.pdf


With the > things facing up your wiring should be from left to right connections 1,3,4 and 6


1 and 3 are the speaker wires


4 is ground


6 is power
Click to expand...

Ok great. What's the rest of this crap? Tap-II? Seatbelt shutoff?
 
Trying to get this installed today. Should have had it done an hour ago but I can't find my damn soldering iron....
 
Siren is in.


ai256.photobucket.com_albums_hh192_kadetklapp_siren.jpg


Glad I did it. HUGE improvement over the ChiCom crap-tastic siren which sounded like an old Nintendo game.
 
RL1 said:
Looks better already!
Click to expand...

Thanks. I'm really happy with it. It sounds 500x's better than the old one.


Anyone know how easy it is to change the illumination bulb in a PA300? I believe there is a slit cut above the faceplate for backlighting, but it's not working. Should I have hooked up a seperate wire? I'd like to be able to see what I'm selecting in the dark.
 
I'm pretty sure it's just attached to the main power wire. I just switched my PA300 for a Whelen last shift and there were only 4 wires hooked up. IMO, the light doesn't do much, even at night, besides let you know it's turned on.
 
RL1 said:
I'm pretty sure it's just attached to the main power wire. I just switched my PA300 for a Whelen last shift and there were only 4 wires hooked up. IMO, the light doesn't do much, even at night, besides let you know it's turned on.
Click to expand...

Ok, thanks. I will just make do. I've got a little flexi-light I can put in that outlet and use that for illumination.
 
Also soldered and repaired the left-front HAW strobe. Wasn't getting power for some reason. While I was digging around in the front end I located an extra (third?) strobe cable just laying in the bumper cover. Tested it and I had power. The strobe tubes have old-style plugs and so I just soldered the connections for the time being. So instead of having just one right strobe on the front (like a strobing turn signal!) I've got both of them going now.


I might do a short video sometime, but it's not real impressive.
 
Well this past weekend was a good test of my wiring and soldering skills. I had the car parked for over an hour yesterday evening while I directed traffic out of the town park. We had about 10,000 people present for a fireworks show and festival. this town has a population of 349 so it was a big deal. Usually when I've done this detail with this car in the past, I've had to shut the lightbar down and rely on the HAWs and deck lights due to the current draw. Thankfully, I was able to run every single light on the car with no problems whatsoever even with the outside temps in the upper 90s. The day before (saturday) myself and another officer responded to a wreck involving a subject who fled possibly armed with a handgun. About 13 miles running "hot" tested the "new" used siren and it did perfectly fine. I love the tones coming out of this PA300. Got a line of some over-stock Chinese knock-off LED modules that were made for a 2100 knock-off from a guy locally that owns the local ambulance service. He is trying to get rid of the stuff, so he offered to sell all the LED modules needed to populate the Excalibur lower half for around $150. That's good for us as we are on a strict budget and we will spend over $100 on just the 2100 upper domes. Looking forward to having this done by fall.
 
Have you been able to get some external pics?
 
Nope. The car hasn't really changed appearance. This is it last winter-


ai256.photobucket.com_albums_hh192_kadetklapp_impala.jpg


I added some knock-off silverware TIR6 setups in place of the amp-sucking intersection sweepers just last night. It looks pretty good, but they are not bright enough.


Also removed the "extra" Sho-Me power supply, turned out it was the reason for my dead strobe cables. The power supply had a fried fuse socket. Not sure if it's still serviceable, but I doubt it.


I'll try and get some pictures soon, at night.
 
This is a really craptastic night shot of the rear of the car with the main rotators off. I added the Talons to the rear deck and the SHO ME leds to the back of the bar. The camera caught the strobes between alternation so it's hard to figure out wtf is going on. Basically on the rear deck are two Federal Signal strobes towards the center (red is flashing in the picture) and then two single Talons (blue is flashing in pic) to the outside of those. The taillights have HAWs (the right one is strobing in the pic).


ai256.photobucket.com_albums_hh192_kadetklapp_impy.jpg


I have the rear deck strobes, taillights HAWs, and front HAWs are powered by a Sho-Me 8-outlet 120watt power supply, fan-cooled.
 
Trying this week to rebuild the spotlight. Not having much luck. Trying to use a new model Unity head assembly but can't get the shafts/rod to seperate.
 
I came across one of these projects not to long ago. One of the local fire departments old chiefs car (which another fire department bought), The had the original lights and removed some lights and added new ones and tried to use all the old wiring and add some new ones. I must have pulled 30 or 40 feet of extra wiring that wasn't needed or just laying in there dead. I had nightmears for weeks after hoping I never would see a job like that again. I feel your pain. More than you know. But I have to look in my work bench but I might have a Code 3 V-Con laying around. That'll help with the cluster of switch's you have. But again, at this point and time I can't remember if I still have it or not. I will look tonight. Let me know if your interested.
 
NBFC46 said:
I came across one of these projects not to long ago. One of the local fire departments old chiefs car (which another fire department bought), The had the original lights and removed some lights and added new ones and tried to use all the old wiring and add some new ones. I must have pulled 30 or 40 feet of extra wiring that wasn't needed or just laying in there dead. I had nightmears for weeks after hoping I never would see a job like that again. I feel your pain. More than you know. But I have to look in my work bench but I might have a Code 3 V-Con laying around. That'll help with the cluster of switch's you have. But again, at this point and time I can't remember if I still have it or not. I will look tonight. Let me know if your interested.
Click to expand...

Thanks. I think we are good with the PA300. The tones on this are awesome, and there was just enough room for it.


There is still a huge nest of wires that need pulled, but whenever I pull unused wire from this car, crap quits working, and I have to go thru it all over again. Really need to pull the whole interior and start over, but the car can't be down that long. It's the only car we have. Got the spotlight rebuilt and working great. Going to install some TIR3s and my new night sun in the coming weeks.
 
ark_firefighter said:
Couldn't you call the County Sheriff and ask if they can get someone to pull an extra shift and cover your area for a 24 hour period ? You could probley get 95% of the work done then.
Click to expand...
:lol: :lol:


No. They aren't real helpful, and I can say that because I work for them full-time.


Anyway, I plan to get some better pictures of it next week. Maybe I'll even shoot a short video.
 
I know how frustrating it is to drive a POS cruiser. My first one was a 98 CVPI that had no A/C, manual windows, cloth bench seat, no spotlight, no computer, no center console, and the only lighting on it was a vector with lenses so faded you could barely see the thing in the daytime. Not to mention the thing was completely trashed by the guy I shared it with and smelt like garlic and cigars. You have made some good progress on this car already, you will get there, rome wasn't built over night.
 
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