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POLICE LANE Top Upft Tips CPL. ED SANOW A few accessories go a long way. T he frst tip is to use a sliding trunk tray. This is essential for agencies running a full-size spare tire in the Charger. However, it is also helpful in the Caprice and Ford PI Sedan, where the full-size spare is under the load foor. Mount the electronics on the slideout tray, or mount the Charger���s spare tire on the slideout tray. Either way, and regardless of make of sedan, you are making the most of the smaller trunk volume. By the way, as you or your upftters are bulldozing around in the interior or trunk, desperately looking for a place to bolt something, tip number two is don���t move that black box, any black box, not even a little bit, even if it is in your way. It may be an airbag deployment sensor, stability control sensor, passive antenna sensor. One upftter unbolted a black box, moved it to install something, then put it right back���except rotated it 90 degrees to ft the spot. It turned out to be a roll control sensor. Every time the ofcer hit the brakes hard, the sensor told the stability control the vehicle was undergoing sudden and extreme body roll���and stability control went nuts. Upft tip number three: Strongly consider the use of a push bumper. Tink about it even if you have the strictest policy to never, ever push anything. Call it something else: front accessory mount, upft accessory rail, front fascia protector. Te clearest and most obvious reason for the ���accessory rail��� is a place to mount stuf. With the NextGen sedans and crossovers, there is almost no room under the front fascia and between the inner and outer fender wells. Even if you can cram some lights and a speaker under the fascia, for their part, Ford Fleet is emphatic not to block any of the inlet air to the PI Sedan and PI Utility radiators! OK, maybe you can fnd room for one siren speaker between fender wells. While it varies by make and model, we both know the sound output is going to be compromised. And even with the unobstructed siren output, we both know how easy it is to outrun the siren signal. Te trend is toward two speakers, either twin standard speakers, or one standard and one low frequency. And if we have trouble upftting one speaker, putting two 100-watt siren speakers under the hood is out of the question. Tink upft accessory rail. Te push bumper is also an excellent place to mount frontfacing, intersection-angle and side-facing LEDs. We both know LEDs mounted behind the grille (front fascia) are absolutely invisible of-axis. Tink front accessory mount. Especially for the NextGen vehicles with projector-style headlights, the push bumper is an excellent place to mount wig-wag LEDs. You already know you cannot wig-wag projector headlights and you may not be happy with the fash rate of the headlights that have the factory wig-wag function. Simply mount a pair of LEDs on the push bumper just inside the uprights on each side, which will keep their light output separate from the high and low beams. Tis is the least expensive way to upft one of the police vehicle���s most efective warning signals. What about damage to exposed lights and sirens when the push bumper takes a bump? Tink about it. Te thin plastic front fascia without a push bumper doesn���t ofer much protection anyhow. And that same bump without an accessory rail will shove those lights and siren right into the radiators. Te push bumper also protects the front fascia. It doesn���t take much of a front end hit to more than pay for your upft accessory rail. Upft tip number four is to fnd a truly competent, tech-oriented upftter. Te low-tech, wire-crimping wrench who upftted your old tech vehicles of the past has no business upftting what is basically a rolling computer lab. Te low-cost upft performed by that guy, after-hours or of-duty? Yeah, maybe THAT is why your battery is dead after the car sits over the weekend. Your NextGen upftter needs to be half-wrench, half-geek. ��� Ed Sanow I Editorial Director Ed Sanow is the editorial director of Police Fleet Manager magazine and can be reached at esanow@hendonpub.com. Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren���t used to an environment where excellence is expected.���Steve Jobs To post your comments on this story, please visit www.pfmmagonline.com. www.pfmmag.com 63