California Sheriff 1999 Chevy Tahoe PPV

[DJMar]

1 hour ago, mikemodeler said:

I have had great success with the quality of the product and service from this online seller. They have a ton of stuff for police/fire/EMT builds.

http://www.customsquads.com/products.html

I've ordered a few things from Custom Squads, but that was quite a few years ago. Have you ordered from them recently? A quick look at their website reveals that they haven't updated the parts list since 2019.

[mikemodeler]

It's been a year or two but they are fast with their service.

[av405]

20 hours ago, DJMar said:

This is looking really good. As usual, it's a super clean and neat build. Have you lowered it? It seems to be at a good 2wd ride height.

Also, I was wondering what you were going to do with the lightbar, and that's an excellent choice.??I should have stocked up on more of those Lindberg kits when they were still available!

 

The newer, retooled release of the Silverado does have these wheels, but the design is changed. They are molded open, which is a bonus. However, they have a mounting boss on the back for metal axles, as well as ribs around the circumference to hold them in the hollow vinyl tires. They are smaller than the AMT standard, which means fitting them in the majority of tires out there will be a challenge.

Thank you. Yes, I lowered it to a 2WD. It looks about right compared to the real thing. 

I like the detail on the Lindberg MX7000 light bar, but I always found it to be just a bit too short. It looks fine on sedans, but it looks small on the Tahoe. I'm working on some light bar mounts, so that should help.

Thanks for the comparison pictures. The openings on the newer mold are nice, but I'm discouraged by the small size and ribs. I'm glad I didn't try to use those on this build.

For the record, Custom Squads is no more. They took their website down a few weeks ago and Rosa, one of the owners, told me that they weren't going to be active anymore due to health issues. When I asked about a potential return, I didn't not get an email back. The website was taken down shortly after. I hope their health issues improve as they were a great source. I'm glad I stocked up on many parts from them over the years.

 

[av405]

Next up: the bumpers. When I opened this nearly 30 year-old kit, I found the chrome on the bumpers to be intact but notably blemished. It's a bit hard to see in the picture below, but there are blemishes throughout. I initially thought about stripping the chrome and re-spraying with Revell Chrome, but I got nervous at the prospect of having to handle and possibly affect the finish on the spray chrome after.

     

The front bumper had some nasty imperfections that needed to be dealt with. I sanded the chrome off the top to get the area as smooth as possible:

I then filled in these areas with putty:

Once that was done, I sanded the chrome on the "rubber" portions of the bumper down with 600 grit, masked, and painted the rubber with Mr. Surfacer 1500 Black Primer. I like to sand the chrome down first to promote better paint adhesion. I've had good luck starting with a light mist coat of black and then a second fuller coat to paint these smaller areas. 

Since I sanded the chrome off the top of the front bumper, I painted this area with the black primer and then applied bare metal foil. It's not as bright as the kit chrome, but it was the best solution I had and it's not a large area, so I can live with it. Plus, I will eventually install a front push bar, which will further obscure it.

I'll eventually add a bumper sticker to the rear bumper and a license plate to the front bumper (plus the push bar), so hopefully this will cover up some of the kit chrome blemishes and draw attention away.

I love working on these smaller parts. A little bit of effort can go a long way. 

[slusher]

Very nice work on your bumpers!

[av405]

On 8/28/2024 at 10:39 PM, slusher said:

Very nice work on your bumpers!

Thanks!

The light bar is now done. I modified some light bar mounts that I purchased from Shapeways years ago and painted them. I also added the unit number decal on the back of the light bar. This number will match the roof number. Not sure why LASD used to add that number to the light bar as well, but they did. 

The wheels are also done. I painted the lug nuts with some black paint and a tooth pick. I then added the center cap decals that came on the recent issue of the AMT C-3500 kit. Love the way they look:

Here's a nice little detail. I added a bumper sticker from a decal sheet I have:

I was impressed to find that the same bumper sticker was also found on the real thing!

 

[rv1963]

Your work is always so neat and clean, well done.

[av405]

36 minutes ago, rv1963 said:

Your work is always so neat and clean, well done.

Thank you, Robert. It's what I aim for.

Now onto the grill. I knew from the get-go that this build would live or die on my ability to source a good W/T grill. With the spread of 3D printed options, it finally became a reality. I first sourced the grill design from cults3D:

https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/various/1990-s-amt-chevy-c3500-stock-work-truck-grill

Contrary to popular belief, the AMT GMT400 Chevy trucks and the AMT Tahoe of the same generation don't come from the same mold family. The grill on the Tahoe is the same width, but taller than on the truck counterparts. I had someone much more program literate than me take the 3D design I purchased and make it taller using a slicer program. Here's the result, with the original truck grill on the left and the modified Tahoe grill on the right. Here you can see the differences:

Here's the Tahoe grill, in all it's crisp glory:

The fascia was made to fit the Tahoe, but unfortunately the design does not correspond to fitting the Tahoe as-is:

This required me to carefully obliterate much of the plastic on the front end. This is a curbside, promo-style kit, so I had more reign to do damage that will be hidden. I used putty after to fill in some areas to provide a better fit:

Here's a test fit, with the grill snugly affixed:

And here she is, with the body work sanded down and re-primed and the grill primed and painted in its final color of Tamiya TS-4 German Grey. I love this color for base/work grills of this era. I've begun applying some BMF to detail the grill more. I'm still figuring out how I'm going to paint the lights, but that'll be for another post:

Another small detail that's done is the front push bar. Some of you may remember the now-defunct Rookie Resin. The owner is a member on this forum and he made some excellent pieces, mainly for pickup trucks. As I was looking through his catalog, I noticed that he offered an LASD-spec push bar. It wasn't advertised as such but I immediately recognized the design. What are the odds!? I snatched up a bunch because I know how volatile the aftermarket industry can be, and I'm glad I did with how things turned out. 

Compare to the real thing:

It's all done after removal of the mounting plate, some light sanding and washing, and some Mr. Surfacer 1500 Black Primer:

[Mike Slapattack]

Neat project! I have one of these kits built lying around, one of the first models I ever built.

[av405]

19 hours ago, Mike Slapattack said:

Neat project! I have one of these kits built lying around, one of the first models I ever built.

Thank you, Mike. It it weren't for all the modifications I'm making, this would be a easy kit to put together. I've got 2 more laying around, so I'll probably build a stock one in the future. 

The tail lights are done. Like with many other kits, the Tahoe's tail lights came with inner pegs to insert into pre-made holes in the tail light housing. I do not like the look that this achieves. I snipped the pegs and sanded down the back of the tail lights. I then polished the interior with some Novus #2 to address the sanding streaks. After this, I applied BMF on the back of the lights. If you look closely, the areas where the pegs were are still slightly visible. These are indentations in the plastic, so I decided not to sand further in an effort to erase them as I might make the tail lights too thin. I taped off a square and filled it in with a Silver Sharpie to "create" a break light lens. 

On my law enforcement builds, I always try to recreate the actual interior equipment used as best as possible. More so if I know what the interior layout was. I have some memories of how these Tahoes were equipped. But the molded in details of the interior tub, combined with my lack of accurate scale police equipment and patience to completely re-do the interior, means that I'm going to aim for an in-between solution. This is what the tub looks like:

I carefully cut out the majority of the center console, sanded the are down, and covered it with a piece of Evergreen styrene. I also placed a piece of styrene over the 4x4 shifter housing. Again, not the cleanest look, but it'll have tp do:

Since the Tahoe is a 1996, it comes with a dash that does not have a housing for a passenger-side airbag. For the 1997 model year, GM added passenger side airbags, necessitating a re-design of the dash. This coincided with the introduction of the Tahoe PPV. This is the Tahoe dash, sans passenger airbag:

I took a 1997 dash with the passenger side airbag housing from a promo 1997 C-3500 to use on this kit. Again, I want to emphasize that the Tahoe and C-3500 molds are not from the same family, so I had to cut/sand down the sides of the truck dash to fit in the Tahoe tub. I also cut the pedals from the original Tahoe dash and glued them onto the C-3500 dash. Here's the C-3500 dash after these modifications:

Here's the interior after being primed and then painted with Tamiya AS-28 Medium Gray. The lighting makes it look a bit lighter than it really is. 

I'll be using the center console from the Lindberg Crown Victoria kit. It's not really accurate to what LASD had, but I chose it because it has an MDT (computer) fairly similar to what LASD ran at the time:

I used the steering wheel and column from the Tahoe and modified it to fit the C-3500 dash as it has much crisper detail than the C-3500 counterpart. Here it is after being painted alongside the police console:

[rv1963]

Great work on that interior.

[av405]

 

10 hours ago, rv1963 said:

Great work on that interior.

Thank you! Speaking of which, the interior is all done. The dash gauge decal is from the C-3500 kit. There should be a center-mounted shotgun between the front seats, but there is no room to place it due to the molded in center console. This isn't my favorite interior work, but it'll do. 

 

[BK9300]

Another terrific build!  Do LASD units like this have the interior cab plexiglass separation between front and back seats?

[av405]

25 minutes ago, BK9300 said:

Another terrific build!  Do LASD units like this have the interior cab plexiglass separation between front and back seats?

Thanks! It wasn't until the late 2000's that LASD began to incorporate plexiglass into the separator. Before then, it was just metal mesh. I haven't found a single photo of a Tahoe with a separator, so I didn't include one. Which makes sense since field supervisors aren't really expected to make arrests/transport arrestees. 

[DJMar]

Lots of work on the details here, and it shows. I didn't know that the dimensions on the Tahoe grille were that different, so I learned something today. Good to know.

Also, that bumper decal is a nice bit of serendipity.

[av405]

1 hour ago, DJMar said:

Lots of work on the details here, and it shows. I didn't know that the dimensions on the Tahoe grille were that different, so I learned something today. Good to know.

Also, that bumper decal is a nice bit of serendipity.

Thank you, DJ. Prior to measuring the grill out myself, I had read about the differences a few times on this forum. 

Well, the time has come. This project is officially on hold. I'm surprised I got so much done in 2 weeks. 90% of what's left to do is to paint the body, including clear and polishing, and to paint the black edges (frit) on the glass.

[espo]

Like the way you did the consol. 

[av405]

On 9/4/2024 at 10:53 AM, espo said:

Like the way you did the consol. 

Thank you!

[slusher]

Great looking interior!

[Ron Hamilton]

Excellent job.  I love the subject matter and the execution.

[slusher]

How’s mom and baby?

[av405]

On 9/10/2024 at 5:25 PM, slusher said:

Great looking interior!

 

On 9/17/2024 at 8:38 AM, Ron Hamilton said:

Excellent job.  I love the subject matter and the execution.

Thanks guys!

On 9/18/2024 at 5:32 AM, slusher said:

How’s mom and baby?

Carl, both are doing well and resting at home. Thank you for asking.

I got a chance to finish the grill recently. As I mentioned previously, it was painted with Tamiya German Grey. After considering some paint options for the headlights, I decided that decals might be the best way to go. I purchased some headlight decals from STS Decals:

https://stsdecals.com/collections/headlights

Before applying the decals, I used a black Gundam Marker I purchased at Hobby Lobby to outline the headlight buckets and create the illusion of a rubber seal.

I placed pieces of bare metal foil on the turn signal lenses and then brush painted over the BMF with Tamiya X-26 Clear Orange. After this, I applied the STS Decals. The pieces came from both the OBS Chevy and Ford Bronco sets, I just slightly trimmed them to fit my grill. To create a headlight lens effect, I used Mod Podge Dimensional Magic. I heard about it on a Facebook group and it seemed like a better alternative to epoxy, which can yellow over time. The Mod Podge is fairly self leveling, I just spread it out with a toothpick. It requires 24 hrs to dry. 

 

Once that was done, I took an extra Chevy "bowtie" decal from the C-3500 decal sheet to finish things off:

Overall, I was pleased with the outcome and I think the decals gave me a more realistic finish than what I could have achieved with paint. The pictures don't really show the effect of the Mod Podge, but it's there.

 

[DJMar]

17 hours ago, av405 said:

After considering some paint options for the headlights, I decided that decals might be the best way to go. I purchased some headlight decals from STS Decals:

https://stsdecals.com/collections/headlights

How are their decals? I've had a hankering to order a few of their headlight sets because I have a bunch of Silverados in the stash, but haven't pulled the trigger.

The finished grille looks pretty darn realistic, imo.

 

17 hours ago, av405 said:

 I used Mod Podge Dimensional Magic. I heard about it on a Facebook group and it seemed like a better alternative to epoxy, which can yellow over time. The Mod Podge is fairly self leveling, I just spread it out with a toothpick. It requires 24 hrs to dry.

I just learned about this stuff myself. Going to pick up a bottle next time I'm at the local Michaels. ??

[av405]

33 minutes ago, DJMar said:

How are their decals? I've had a hankering to order a few of their headlight sets because I have a bunch of Silverados in the stash, but haven't pulled the trigger.

I like them, they're not too thick. I think the finish is a bit flat and that they would look better with some type of "lens" finish on them. But that is on the modeler and not really a reflection on the quality of the decals.

[Mike Slapattack]

Wow this is really coming together! I love the mod-podge headlights, I've never attempted making headlights out of a clear gel medium but my local dollar store started carrying a wide array of Mod Podge products and I want to try it out. Keep up the work and tips!