Upfitting the Sprinter
Published in: 7/1/07
Date: 7/1/2007
By: Yager, Mark
The Victoria Police, located in the westernmost region of Canada, were looking for a new platform for their prisoner transport duties. The selections ranged from their current Chevrolet vans to the Ford E-series in various configurations to the Dodge Sprinter. While there were no serious problems with the Chevrolet vans, the Victoria Police were open to new vehicles.
The Victoria Police use their prisoner transport vans in general patrol duty to respond to calls in the city, to transport personnel for various special events, and, of course, for dedicated transport duties for prisoners. The department’s policing is primarily urban with no high-speed freeways with which to contend, but Victoria has numerous small and winding streets as well as the typical midsize city downtown core.
The ideal vehicle would have excellent maneuverability, good internal space for cargo and officers, a long service life and minimal downtime. With fuel prices currently running about $4.00 per gallon (SU.S.), excellent in-town fuel efficiency was on the “required” list. After conversations with police in London and other European locations where the Sprinter has been in use in its Mercedes-Benz badged form for 10 years, the Sprinter quickly became the new favorite. European police agencies commented on the superb fuel efficiency Of the Mercedes 5-cylinder turbo-diesel, the excellent maneuverability, and a sendee life approaching 200,000 miles.
The Dodge-branded Sprinter van is made in the DaimlerChrysler plant in Germany. The distinct Mercedes touches are evident throughout the van. From the console-mounted shift lever to the bright orange seat adjustment levers, to the tool case below the passenger’s floorboards, it’s all Mercedes. The department was thankful for the Dodge badging, as having Mercedes vehicles in the fleet may have made it difficult to justify to the tax-paying residents of the city.
The 2006 Sprinter is available in a number of configurations. Standard and high-roof versions provide up to 6 feet 1 inch of interior headroom. The chassis is available in both 2,500 and 3,500 series with a choice of 118-inch, 140-inch, and 158-inch wheelbases. The van comes in either a passenger or cargo configuration. The passenger configuration allows options for second-, third- and fourth-row seating, side and rear windows, and more. The cargo configurations have no rear side windows and no rear bench seats.
The Mercedes 2.7L 5-cylinder inline turbo diesel is the only engine available. The 154-hp engine has 243 lb-ft of torque at realistic rev ranges (at 1,600-2,400 rpm), making the Sprinter ideal for city use as well as normal highway driving. The engine is quiet and starts quickly, even when cold. The transmission is a 5-speed automatic. Driving performance could be described as “brisk” or “zippy” with good acceleration from a standing start due to the above-average torque at low rpm ranges.
The Victoria PD calculated that a fully upfitted Chevrolet van averaged about 8 mpg in the city. A large reason for the poor mileage is that the van is outfitted with an aluminum prisoner containment system, plus all the tools of the trade that weigh the vehicle down. Coupled with the fact that the V-8 gas engine idles for a significant portion of its operating life, the Victoria Police were convinced that they were spending far more money on fuel than they needed to. The Sprinter promised better fuel mileage because of the fact that it has a more efficient diesel engine, which should also use far less fuel than a gas engine when idling.
The Victoria Police estimate that they will be able to keep a Sprinter in service for at least 6 years compared to a 4-year service life for the vans currently in use. This would lower outfitting costs by a significant portion and also reduce downtime. The 20,000 mile factory-recommended maintenance intervals were also appealing to reduce downtime and maintenance costs. Combined with an expected decreased fuel consumption of a minimum of 20%, it was calculated that the vehicles should result in a netzero-increase in the fleet costs over their lifetime in the worst-case scenario business case.
All the factors were considered, and the department purchased four Sprinters. The 2006 140-inch wheelbase, 2500 model was ordered. The Sprinters would be required to fit in some tight spaces where overhead clearance was a premium, so the standard roof version was selected.
Upfitting
The task of equipment design and outfitting fell to RadioWorks, the local emergency vehicle outfitter that holds the contract to equip the Victoria PD’ s vehicles. One of the challenges identified early in the process is that because there are no known Sprinters in active front-line police service in North America, most of the equipment would have to be mounted with custom-made brackets and parts.
The overall layout of the interior of the van is straightforward. The Victoria Police ordered the Sprinters with the optional second battery, which is located underneath the passenger seat. The secondary battery is isolated from the main battery, so most power connections were made there.
One major issue for the Victoria PD Sprinters is that they have only a 2-inch clearance from the top of the roof at the rear of the van to the concrete ceiling of an underground parking lot at the courthouse, a location the Sprinter prisoner transporter will frequently visit. The Victoria Police expected that the vans would settle a further couple inches once the prisoner cage was installed, but there was still no room for a roof-mounted lightbar.
Another consideration was that a roof-mounted lightbar would have been too high to be effective. As a result, a 60inch-wide, one-sided, ambulance-style lightbar was used on the front of the vehicle. LeJeune Engineering, a skilled local fabricator, manufactured custom mounts. The lightbar bolts to the roofline of the Sprinter via heavy-duty Riv-Nuts. The design of this specific lightbar uses a unique Quick- Trak mounting track.
The extruded aluminum track was bolted to the front of the lightbar shroud. The lightbar then simply hangs on the track, with an interlocking system very similar to how a kitchen cabinet is hung on the wall. A number of heavy-duty setscrews on the bottom of the lightbar secure it to the track. This system vastly simplifies installation and any future service the lightbar may require.
Because the lightbar hangs out over the front windshield, there were some concerns of the flashes from the LED modules in the bar shining down onto the dash. The upfitter removed the lenses on the lightbar and coated the bottom section of the lenses black to eliminate any downward light. Compact PIAA driving lights were added below the front of the lightbar and on the sides of the lightbar shroud to serve as takedown and alley lights.
The space behind the grille of the Sprinter is extremely limited. This eliminated the placing of a siren speaker and grille lights there, so a front push bumper was selected. Again, no off-the shelf models were readily available. The desire was to have a full-coverage bumper to help protect the one-piece headlight assemblies from parking lot scuffs and also to give the Sprinter more of a substantial presence. The same fabricator that made the lightbar mount created the front bumper. The side pieces of the bumper are bolt-on and therefore are replaceable in case they incur damage.
The rear doors presented another upfitting challenge. The doors run almost the full height and width of the van, and the doors can open all the way so they are flat against the side of the van. Above the door, there is only 2 inches of vertical room above the drip rail. Low-profile LED modules were selected and mounted there on each side of the third brake light.
Because the rear windows had been removed and replaced with sheet metal, the factory rear window defroster had been removed and its wires left intact. This allowed the mounting of the rear-door LED modules to use this wiring. The wires obtain power via spring-loaded contacts on the doorframe.
The factory wires in the doorframe were disconnected, and the LED power wires were substituted. This provided an LED power path that did not require running wires from the doorframe to the door. Halogen auxiliary reverse lights were installed below the rear bumper to aid in visibility when backing the vehicle up.
Strobe lights were installed in the amber and red portions of the rear lights, as well as in the front headlights. This task was more easily accomplished than was first thought. The headlights appear to have a space reserved for another bulb, so the strobes fit in that spot and provide betterthan-expected light to the front. The rear light housings are relatively spacious making strobe tube installation easy.
The layout of the Sprinter prohibited easy wiring paths to the front of the vehicle without masses of floor- mounted wiring. In addition, the large diesel fuel tank is located below and just behind the driver’s seat, under the floor, which further complicated wiring runs. As a solution, a semi-rigid, outdoor-rated, chemical-proof conduit was used to create a path from the wiring cabinet to the front of the truck. This runs under the chassis of the truck to the engine compartment.
The electrical cabinet contains the siren, radio, and other electronic components all in one location, mounted midway up the driver’s side interior wall. Wires from the rear lights were run in rigid plastic conduit up the drivers’ side wall behind some factory body support members. This allows an accessible wiring path for future additions or repairs.
The rear of the interior was stripped in preparation for the prisoner compartment. Once the wiring conduit was in place and the wiring run and tested, the Sprinter was sent to a fabrication shop for the installation of the prisoner compartment. The fabricator suggested that the inside of the Sprinter body be treated with spray-on insulation to protect the residents of the compartment from temperature extremes. After the insulation was applied, the prisoner cage was created and installed.
As the Victoria Police use the Sprinter for various roles, and the time that individuals spend in the prisoner compartment is relatively short, the compartment is a “one-room” system that extends from the rear doors to almost halfway forward into the passenger area. This allowed for the second row of passenger seating to remain intact and also allowed for an aluminum storage box to be installed on the passenger side of the front of the prisoner compartment.
Scene lights were added to the rear of the prisoner compartment, as were lights to illuminate the interior of the prisoner compartment. A ventilation system for the prisoner compartment draws air in from a vent on the outside of the van and exhausts it on the other side. Switches on the front dash control all scene lights and the fan system. The rear bumper was too high for easy entrance and exits, so a metal step-bumper was fabricated with a non-skid perforated-aluminum tread plate for additional safety.
The entire lighting, ventilation, and electronics packages are run through a power timer that turns off all the connected components about 45 minutes after the ignition turned off. This eliminates the chance that officers will leave the prisoner compartment fans or any other electrical component running until the vehicle’s battery is dead.
In addition, all power connections were made at the second battery located in the base of the passenger’s seat. This battery is isolated from the main battery, so even if it is drained, the vehicle will still start. When the vehicle is running, the alternator charges both the main and the second battery. The second battery is an option when ordering the Sprinter and is very highly recommended.
The area between the seats is fairly wide, and due to the height of the seating the siren, radio, and computer mounts all had to be fairly high as well. GamberJohnson makes a full-sized storage box that was mounted between the seats, and the laptop mount bolts directly to that box. The Victoria Police generally have two officers in the prisoner transport vehicles, so the computer and other controls had to be available to both front-seat occupants. Because of the relatively spacious interior of the van, concerns of the airbag striking the laptop mount were almost non-existent.
A number of upfitting tasks, normally easily accomplished on a police vehicle were more difficult on the Sprinter. Installation of a switch to mm off the daytime running lights, for example, proved impossible. So did disabling of seatbelt-reminder chimes. The automatic locks also cause some havoc for the officers, as the doors lock when the vehicle is started and do not unlock automatically when the ignition is off. The driver and passenger can easily exit the vehicle simply by pulling on the door handles, but then they must unlock the other doors with the on-dash switch or the key fob if they wish to use the side or rear doors.
Because the Sprinters have been in service with the Victoria PD only a short time, only extended duty will show whether this concept works well for the department. If the initial reactions from the officers and the public are any indication, the Sprinters are in it for the long haul.