Taking apart the Kerr Industries upfitting

This section is for discussion of OEM police package options and police equipment for the Caprice (both OEM and after-market), as well as after-market upfitting perfomed on our cars.
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elc32955
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Taking apart the Kerr Industries upfitting

Post by elc32955 »

I'm finally starting to get ambitious enough to tackle tracing out and stripping the after-market upfitting that was done by Kerr Industries. I've had several wiring bundles in the car since I've had it and pretty much just left them intact without disturbing them so far. Most of the wiring centers around the right side trunk area near the aux. battery. After inspecting some of the wiring this afternoon, it looks like I have either LED's or strobe lights in the reverse lights that I think are still in the assemblies. I am going to have to spend a day tearing down the car figuring out where everything is going and what still works/what can be pulled. Only way to really do it is to open up the side channels on both sides and start pulling & tracing wires, cutting tie wraps and tape, and generally taking it all apart. When I figure out what's left intact and what could be useable down the road for car shows/displays, I can work on a system to hook it all back up.

Today I finished a project that I've been procrastinating on for a while, finished hooking up the rear flashing lights in the trunk lid. They were originally red & blue when I got the car, I pulled the lollypop pancake LED lights that Kerr installed and ordered amber LED's of the same diameter to install in the place using the original brackets. The new lights are thicker but work very well, they're the same amber flashing lights (that will do 16 programmable patterns BTW!) you see on the back of garbage trucks flush-mounted. What's important is I can now use them for car shows or for special events where I'm providing emergency communications (since I'm also an amateur radio operator) and I reactivated an OEM option the car came with.

Putting the new lights in was a little of a challenge, I had to drill out the old mounting rivets attaching the original light brackets to the trunk lid in order to remove the old lights off the brackets. As a result, I was faced with putting new studs in to mount the lights to and drilling the old brackets with two holes each to mount the new lights onto. I did the sticky-finger trick to get the new stainless steel screws and lockwashers into the holes in the trunk lid interior sheet metal (wrap your finger with electrical tape and guide the screws into the holes, the stainless screws I used are non-magnetic so a parts trapper wouldn't work to guide them into place), then after attaching the lights I used small stainless wingnuts to secure it all in place. Everything is properly wire loomed and it really does look factory. I'll have to take a video of it running and post it somewhere.

Next thing I want to tackle is figuring out why my headlight & tail light flashers don't come on when the appropriate wire in the upfitting harness is grounded. I'm just going to have to take an ohmmeter and start tracing continuity. I'll apply appropriate inputs right at the relay center for the option (behind the right headlight) to see if I can get anything to happen and then go from there. While I'm in the front working I'll check to see if any strobes or LED's were upfitted into the headlights/turn signals, etc... I do have a Whelen strobe supply, but for some reason I think it's LED's. There are only two conductors coming out of the trunk lights with red/black 16 gauge power zip cord. Strobe installations are typically three conductors unless it's installed as power supply-on-bulb, which is very rare.

Also I need to trace out where the siren speaker wiring terminates at. I have a telco-style fox & hound that will come in handy for the wire tracing. If the speaker wiring goes to the front right corner of the trunk where everything seems to terminate at, I've got an old Code 3 amplifier that I can mod to provide airhorn only. That would be a good install where the controls are non-accessable, I can get to key on/off power in the police electrical center to power the amp. So all I'd need is two conductors and a small momentary switch.

I never did figure out exactly what equipment GM had in the car to control everything. There was no sign of any control module drilled into any of the interior trin pieces, so I'm surmising it was either a hand-held controller (maybe wireless) or trim pieces were replaced before the car was sent through the auction.

Anyone else have the massive bundle of wires in the trunk or was any equipment left in?

Eric
System Manager and your tour guide for the day. 2015 Caprice w/LFX, former NC DPS staff car. Partial hybrid G8/SS/Camaro SS interior mods, SS MyLink radio upgrade, 2016 Camaro V6 rims, GMPP Malibu chrome exhaust tips, otherwise bone stock for now.
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Tom Slick
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Re: Taking apart the Kerr Industries upfitting

Post by Tom Slick »

I'm starting to work on my car to get the flashing headlights/taillights working...

Sent an email to Kerr about purchasing a switch for the trunk lights, so they only come on when I want them to...

Thinking about adding grill lights and a siren/speaker... All for use at car shows, not on the street!

BTW, what OEM option did you reactivate?

Later,
Tom Slick
1932 Glassic Ford Model A Roadster Replica - Ford 302/C4, approx. 1400lb... :-)
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gregc
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Re: Taking apart the Kerr Industries upfitting

Post by gregc »

Mine was up fitted, but everything was removed before it went to auction. Mine had lights behind the grill, the fog lamp panels, the fender vents, door mirrors, headlights, taillights and trunk panel. Mine also had a cage in the back. I believe the console was upfitted with a police console and a computer because the inside of the console cover is also busted up. I also had push bars too. There are 2 large holes on my bumper cover that's being concealed with reflector tape. GM or dealer didn't bother to cover the holes or replace the trim panels before going to auction. It had lights on the roof too. My car is equipped with 2 holes on the roof for wiring. I ended up removing mounting hardware for the pushbars after I installed my fog lights. If my car was used as a demo and upfitted with all this equipment, why wasn't my car equipped with the optional A-pillar spot light? Another thing that is puzzling is that it has full length side curtain airbags, yet it was upfitted with a cage. My car must be an oddball 9C1 because I haven't seen a 9C1 without the spotlights.
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elc32955
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Re: Taking apart the Kerr Industries upfitting

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Tom, was talking about putting the lights back in the trunk lid since I pulled them after I first took delivery on the car. It's a very fine line here in Florida to what you can get away with installed in a car, car show or no car show. There's been too many wanna-be police officers and posers that have prayed on tourists and innocent people here that have made all of the enforcement agencies hyper-sensitive. Having anything red & blue is a sure ticket to the local pokey, car show or no car show. Since I don't have a badge anymore I'm not going to tempt the fates. :) Anymore I usually make sure any extra lighting installed can be disabled to where you can't switch it on from inside the passenger compartment when you drive, separate circuits and fuse pulls are the easiest way to do that it seems. Makes it a lot harder for Officer Friendly to give you a taste of his bad day. As you know a very few enforcement folks can be real pricks just for the heck of it, show car or no show car. All it takes is one bad encounter to mess you up for life.

Just to digress a second, I used to sell the OEM Ford "Police Interceptor" badges for the rear of Crown Vics on my other website for cars that had them removed. I was told at least three stories over the years about agencies that stopped vehicles, arrested drivers, and impounded & towed cars for just displaying the little Ford OEM "Police Interceptor" badges that Ford put on the rear of every P71 Crown Vic, at the factory, for close to ten years. Of course there's always two sides to every story, but it makes you wonder sometimes. Why tempt the fates when you don't have to?

I just pull the fuse on the trunk lid lights for now to cut them off, eventually I might intercept the harness by the plug and install a cutoff switch. There's a 20-amp fuse in the electrical center at the main battery (think it's Fuse #8) I just pull and stick it in another hole. A switch just for that would be easier by far I agree.

Greg, on your car that's a weird one. I can only assume that maybe it was specially outfitted for some project, if you have wiring coming out the top you probably had a lightbar installed with an electric spotlight. Lot of agencies down here do not order the Unity lights but instead use a electric light on top the lightbar with a remote control. I'd love to find a source within GM that could let us know where these vehicles were assigned out of... but that's not happening for a while probably if at all :) On a small sticker inside my left hand sun visor there's a tag number written which I am assuming is the Michigan dealer plate number that was originally on my car, so it might be able to be traced from that. Also Bill may be able to help you "Stat" your car if you haven't done so already to get your as-built configuration, that sheet from the GM dealer computer system has a code which will give you an indication of what it was (I.E. fleet sale stock, dealer-used, etc....).
System Manager and your tour guide for the day. 2015 Caprice w/LFX, former NC DPS staff car. Partial hybrid G8/SS/Camaro SS interior mods, SS MyLink radio upgrade, 2016 Camaro V6 rims, GMPP Malibu chrome exhaust tips, otherwise bone stock for now.
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elc32955
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Re: Taking apart the Kerr Industries upfitting

Post by elc32955 »

Just an update, I figured out tonight what equipment was installed based on checking the common manufacturer units on the net. Looks like I had a Whelen HHS2200 siren/light controller installed in my car, this controller did everything from the front seat with a hand-held microphone-type integrated controller. This fits the wiring I've found to-date since there was a Cat-5 running to the front dash area from the trunk. I've got the wiring diagram downloaded from Whelen, so it'll hopefully be a snap now to shoot the rest of the upfit wiring to see what goes to where. I'll update this post tomorrow to let y'all know what lights I find... that will be interesting :)
System Manager and your tour guide for the day. 2015 Caprice w/LFX, former NC DPS staff car. Partial hybrid G8/SS/Camaro SS interior mods, SS MyLink radio upgrade, 2016 Camaro V6 rims, GMPP Malibu chrome exhaust tips, otherwise bone stock for now.
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AACoPD05
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Re: Taking apart the Kerr Industries upfitting

Post by AACoPD05 »

elc32955 wrote: Just to digress a second, I used to sell the OEM Ford "Police Interceptor" badges for the rear of Crown Vics on my other website for cars that had them removed. I was told at least three stories over the years about agencies that stopped vehicles, arrested drivers, and impounded & towed cars for just displaying the little Ford OEM "Police Interceptor" badges that Ford put on the rear of every P71 Crown Vic, at the factory, for close to ten years. Of course there's always two sides to every story, but it makes you wonder sometimes. Why tempt the fates when you don't have to?
I have one of these on my Caprice, just below the Caprice badge on the trunk lid. It actually looks pretty good. One of my side partners pulled it off a Ford and stuck it on there to make me mad, however I like it alot and left it there. Jokes on him.
Paul
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elc32955
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Re: Taking apart the Kerr Industries upfitting

Post by elc32955 »

What a disappointment. I spent three hours this morning dissecting the car and the upfit wiring. All of the wiring was pretty much useless, any end devices look like they were removed. I pulled the back seat and cleared the wiring channel on the right of all the old garbage. So, now I have the upfit harness in the passenger seat floorboard free and clear to work on (pulled it out from under the passenger floorboard). I did find where some of the upfit wiring at one time attached to the upfit harness, but it was clipped and stuffed. I'll keep going from there.... No lighting attached anywhere that I could find, if there were lights in the tail lights the assemblies were replaced before it went to the sale.

Only thing I'll have out of all that old wiring is a bunch of re-useable red/black power cord and a complete harness setup that I can sell for one of the Whelen HHS2100/2200 series sirens. It's all there and intact, I removed it all neatly. :) Kerr Industries should be severely taken to task for their upfit practices. Instead of using multi-conductor cable and correctly colored cables, they used 14 gauge red/black power wire for everything!! Makes it hell to go in after someone and try to trace things out, it all looks like 12 volts even if it's not! GRRRRR......

UPDATE 4/23, 7:00 PM

Did about 3 hours more work late this afternoon tracing systems, this time in the engine compartment and the interior passenger side at the upfit harness. Got the rear taillight/reverse lamp flashers to work without much trouble, and finally located the wiring for the siren speaker and verified it worked. The front headlight flashers are still dead. I started pulling things apart under the hood and found the upfitters from hell had been in the harnesses working. I found at least mystery wire spliced in behind the RF headlight, while at least one in the harness was cut. I did identify one good conductor that had been cut starting at the upfit harness, but it has enough length to do what I need. I'm going to try to tap into the green/red stripe wire next day or two directly at the relay, supply power, and see what happens. I guess I could possibly have a bad cube relay, but all the fuses are good after checking.

Eric
System Manager and your tour guide for the day. 2015 Caprice w/LFX, former NC DPS staff car. Partial hybrid G8/SS/Camaro SS interior mods, SS MyLink radio upgrade, 2016 Camaro V6 rims, GMPP Malibu chrome exhaust tips, otherwise bone stock for now.
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Tom Slick
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Re: Taking apart the Kerr Industries upfitting

Post by Tom Slick »

I'd really like the get the partner connectors to the equipment harnesses...


Tom Slick
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elc32955
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Re: Taking apart the Kerr Industries upfitting

Post by elc32955 »

Don't have 'em. If we can get part numbers you might be able to order them through GM parts..... One of my connectors was chopped & gone to boot, the small logic connector.
System Manager and your tour guide for the day. 2015 Caprice w/LFX, former NC DPS staff car. Partial hybrid G8/SS/Camaro SS interior mods, SS MyLink radio upgrade, 2016 Camaro V6 rims, GMPP Malibu chrome exhaust tips, otherwise bone stock for now.
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Re: Taking apart the Kerr Industries upfitting

Post by smwalker »

elc32955 wrote: finished hooking up the rear flashing lights in the trunk lid. They were originally red & blue when I got the car, I pulled the lollypop pancake LED lights that Kerr installed and ordered amber LED's of the same diameter to install in the place using the original brackets.
Eric had a question about the wiring routing for the wires for those light. Did you have a accordion rubber boot at the lower right corner of your trunk lid where the wires from the lights entered the main body? I got 2 plugs in those holes but I think there is supposed to be a boot to carry wires into the main body area from the trunk lid. If so I am wondering if that boot part is available from GM separately or if only available through Kerr and maybe only available as part of the harness for those emergency lights..

Or was yours just some split loom run past the trunk seal like this picture:

Image

The G8 Guys have found a larger diameter one for their cars for when they are adding a camera to the trunk lid and such. But only available in AU and only as part of a $70.00 harness that they do not need any of the wiring.

(EDIT: Oops got that wrong the harness in 2011 was only $25.00 from Paul. Not too bad for a correct part. I have an email into Paul to see if still available)

(Edit 2: Currently harness is $35.00 shipped from AU but currently a back order situation, popular I guess)

Looking for better options.

Have a BMW part coming (for $15.00) that looks like it might be a good match. Will report on that once I get it.

Image
Steve Walker
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