California Sheriff 1999 Chevy Tahoe PPV

[stavanzer]

Man, What a Great Job you are doing!

 

P.S. How is the new Baby?

[Mattilacken]

Nice build there! Reminds me allot of my fathers GMC Suburban from 1996, it also had the same rear door settup. 

[av405]

15 hours ago, DJMar said:

Looking really, REALLY good!

Thanks!

14 hours ago, stavanzer said:

Man, What a Great Job you are doing!

 

P.S. How is the new Baby?

Thank you! Baby is doing well. He's approaching 5 months now and already weighs 18 lbs. Just trying to keep him away from the bad air quality we've been having in So Cal due to the fires. 

10 hours ago, Mattilacken said:

Nice build there! Reminds me allot of my fathers GMC Suburban from 1996, it also had the same rear door settup. 

Thanks! I always thought that the barn doors looked better than the tail gate rear door. 

[EliBuildsModels]

Looks amazing, Alberto!

I think I changed my mind on the 2 door GMC Yukon, I'm too lazy and not smart enough lol. Instead, I'm doing a... ...2000 Chevy Tahoe Limited. I'll start it and post on it as soon as I finish my transporter (also will post). Keep up the good work!!

 

[av405]

On 1/23/2025 at 8:35 PM, EliBuildsModels said:

Looks amazing, Alberto!

I think I changed my mind on the 2 door GMC Yukon, I'm too lazy and not smart enough lol. Instead, I'm doing a... ...2000 Chevy Tahoe Limited. I'll start it and post on it as soon as I finish my transporter (also will post). Keep up the good work!!

Thank you, Eli. Sounds like a fun project. 

Since I still haven't had time to sit down and wet sand/polish, I decided to start looking at my decal options. Over the years, I have collected a large collection of police decals for future projects. I've done this especially with LASD decals. LASD markings are trademarked and the department has taken legal action against many decal makers (no matter how small the operation) to have them cease their sales. All of my decals are out of production pieces. 

For those of you familiar with police decals, Chimneyville also made an LASD set back in the day. That one was the worst of the bunch and I sold it a long time ago. There is also a decal maker on ebay that sells LASD decals under a generic name, but those have inaccurate fonts/colors. So that leaves me with the four sets below. Between them, I have everything I need minus license plates. Looking at the few photos I have found of LASD Tahoes of this era, they all have "1010xxx" series plates. These will be custom made by a friend as a personal favor. 

[EliBuildsModels]

Any new progress?

[av405]

On 3/11/2025 at 9:25 AM, EliBuildsModels said:

Any new progress?

I pretty much set this project aside for the last month and a half due to the baby. But my wife and boy just left on a trip, so I have a week to myself to (hopefully) get this one done. I spent last night and this morning polishing the body. For the first time, I used a dremel rotary tool with polishing attachments I bought on amazon to do this. After reading horror stories about rotary tool polishing, I made sure to set the tool to its lowest speed and to move rapidly to not burn through the paint. I used my trusted Meguiar's products: ScratchX, Ultimate Compound, and Ultimate Polish. I was satisfied with the results, and the multiple coats of clear definitely helped. Still, this is my least favorite part of model building. The ribs on the roof made it particularly hard to remove all of the orange peel. 

Unfortunately, this photo doesn't give the finishing shine justice. 

Since the tailgate is a separate piece, I went ahead and finished it. I taped off the rear latch and spray painted it with Mr. Finishing Surfacer 1500 black primer. I then used a toothpick to apply chrome paint to the keyhole. And finally, I applied the decals:

The Tahoe name badge came with the kit's decal sheet. AMT kits of this era have a lot of extra decal film around the individual decal pieces. You can clearly see the white around each piece. I used a ruler and xacto knife to cut the excess pieces away. This small step will go a long way. 

As is typical with me, I ran into a paint issue. Once I started to cut and polish the hood, a small defect came through on the right side. Based on my past experience, this is from surface contamination. Since it was on the hood, I figured I would just strip the whole thing with some 91% isopropyl alcohol and start over. A setback for sure, but I was happy that it didn't appear on the main body.

Up next, I will prep and repaint the hood and start detail painting on the main body. Stay tuned, this should be a productive week. 

 

[slusher]

Looking Terrific!

[av405]

On 3/17/2025 at 7:41 PM, slusher said:

Looking Terrific!

Thank you.

A bit more progress today. A lot of masking was done to paint small but important features. Tamiya TS-29 Semi Gloss Black was used to paint the black molding trim around the D pillars and rear hatch:

Tamiya TS-4 German Grey was used to depict the plastic molding between the grill and front bumper. Since it is supposed to match the color of the grill, I sanded down the black paint a bit with 1000 grit, hit the area with the same grey primer I used on the grill, and then laid on the German Grey.

[av405]

Today I worked on various tidbits, including painting the rubber seals around the windows. I've never liked doing this as it requires precision and I'm too much of a perfectionist. I tried one of the new AK Real Color Paint markers in rubber black and I loved it. The paint flows beautifully and I was able to wipe off excess paint with small triangular cotton swabs. I also used this same method for the door handles. 

I then made quick work of the third brake light. First I applied some bare metal foil:

I then brush painted with Tamiya X-27 Clear Red:

As I was beginning final assembly, I realized that the one-piece chassis only contains molded-in inner fenders for the front wheels. The back inner fenders are molded into the interior tub. I quickly brush painted some Vallejo black to make sure that they looked right:

 

I made up my own "ghetto" stand to hold the side mirrors to the body while the glue dried:

As of this post, the Tahoe is what I would call 95% done. The hood mishap definitely set me back. Tomorrow I will go through the paint process on it again and then let it dry for a week before I sand and polish it. For now, here's a sneak peek of the nearly final result:

Edited March 20 by av405

[Ragtop Man]

On 8/20/2024 at 4:52 PM, maxwell48098 said:

I did the same conversion to make this MI SP cruiser backs in the '90's.

 Looking forward to seeing this one done.

 

A.J.

Knew I remembered this from somewhere! (Besides my rearview mirror #butofficer)  Could you post some build details about this one when it is convenient?  Reason I ask  - at a former employer, one of the production folks in the graphics end of the building had a civilian MSP Tahoe, which was as tough looking as a truck stop waitress. Always wanted to build it... and for that matter, an MSP Impala. 

[Ragtop Man]

Wrecking my mind with this build, super crisp and clean, very unexpected subject and execution! Look forward to the finished result! 

[av405]

2 hours ago, Ragtop Man said:

Wrecking my mind with this build, super crisp and clean, very unexpected subject and execution! Look forward to the finished result! 

Thank you! I'm excited to get this one done.

[WillyBilly]

Great looking Z56. I have followed this from near the beginning, and I have to say the work to turn the tail gate to barn doors is outstanding.

[av405]

11 hours ago, WillyBilly said:

Great looking Z56. I have followed this from near the beginning, and I have to say the work to turn the tail gate to barn doors is outstanding.

Thank you. The barn door conversion was definitely a learning opportunity for me. I'm about 80% satisfied it with, but I'm still happy I gave it a shot.

[DJMar]

Looking awesome. Your work is, as always, super clean.

[obs.caleb]

On 9/2/2024 at 6:21 PM, av405 said:

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:

Where Could I Find This Dashboard I Need One For My 98 K1500

[av405]

On 3/25/2025 at 2:55 PM, DJMar said:

Looking awesome. Your work is, as always, super clean.

Thank you! That compliment means a lot to me. 

On 3/25/2025 at 7:54 PM, obs.caleb said:

Where Could I Find This Dashboard I Need One For My 98 K1500

You'll have to take it off a 1997 C-3500 promo truck as none of the retail kits ever featured this dash. There is at least one on ebay right now. 

[obs.caleb]

21 hours ago, av405 said:

Thank you! That compliment means a lot to me. 

You'll have to take it off a 1997 C-3500 promo truck as none of the retail kits ever featured this dash. There is at least one on ebay right now. 

Thank You I Found One 

[kymdlr]

Great work on everything. 

[EliBuildsModels]

Did the mirrors come with the kit/promo? Mine has mirrors from a S10...

[slusher]

Beautiful result and the paint pen was a big time saver..