First car - Impala 2001 police pkg - Questions inside

Well first of all I'd love to say hi to all you Impala lovers out there, what a wonderfull car :)

So I got this Police Impala V6 3.8L with 145 000 kms (75k miles aprox), the mecanics are A1 and exterior is A1 as well, paid 3000$ CAD for it at the town auction.

The interior is pretty much messed up because of all the holes and missing "extras" since it was a cop car. But it drives absolutly smooth.

I'm soon going to bump up the quality a bit by first doing the interior and then doing a new paint job w/ mags.

Now with the questions.. (lol)

1- I was planing on trying to find crushed LS models at the scrap yards and get the whole interior re-done in tan leather seats and tan color. Is that a good and possible thing to do? I know the costy part will be to re-do the dash board and the plastic stuff. But I have a friend that works in the scrap business and parts will be quite cheap (if possible to find)

2- There is only a stock radio and I want to put in a CD player and and good speaker system. What would be my best bet: go for impala 00-05 sound systems or do it custom?

3- Will it be a total pain in the ass to do all that renovation because of the electronic wiring and is it possible to do it yourself? Should I leave it to the pros when it comes to the dash and doors?

Thanks ALOT in advance for your time and I'd like to finish by saying how happy I am to find a forum like this for my silly questions :)

Have a nice day

I will say right now, I haven't taken the doors or the dash apart in an impala. However, judging from the looks of it (exposed screwheads...), it shouldn't be too hard at all. My intrigue is very easy to deal with (same car platform) and other GM's i've dealt with are simple. Wiring shouldn't be a problem, as the switches pop out of their sockets in the door trim and dash trim - my only concern would be the dash area around the passenger airbag. Any time you mess with airbag stuff, you could cause trouble. As for the radio, pick a stock impala radio with seperate trunk amplifier and the speakers that go with it. Make sure if your car's an 00-02, you get a radio for one of those years. 03-05's are compatible with each other. The stock cd player system (which was an option - tape was standard on all imps) came with the amp and decent speakers. It's got enough power with loads of bass, particularly for a system without dedicated subwoofers. You will have to have the dealer reprogram the radio, as it uses the Vin# for the antitheft device.

So I got this Police Impala V6 3.8L with 145 000 kms (75k miles aprox), the mecanics are A1 and exterior is A1 as well, paid 3000$ CAD for it at the town auction.

Welcome and with what a car to welcome yourself in. Good find for 3k CAD

1- I was planing on trying to find crushed LS models at the scrap yards and get the whole interior re-done in tan leather seats and tan color. Is that a good and possible thing to do? I know the costy part will be to re-do the dash board and the plastic stuff. But I have a friend that works in the scrap business and parts will be quite cheap (if possible to find)

I've wanted to do the same thing with my cruiser, just have been too lazy at the moment, its possible and very do-able.

2- There is only a stock radio and I want to put in a CD player and and good speaker system. What would be my best bet: go for impala 00-05 sound systems or do it custom?

Best options depends on how much you value your sound-system, I have an aftermarket deck and it works very well for me, you could go with stock options if you wish, might be easier if your scrapping out another Impala anyways.

3- Will it be a total pain in the ass to do all that renovation because of the electronic wiring and is it possible to do it yourself? Should I leave it to the pros when it comes to the dash and doors?

The dash area will be the hardest part for you, as the person above said, you have the Airbags mostly to be concerned with, if there was one area i'd let the pro's do, it would be that area. You can do it yourself i'm sure though, just allow yourself plenty of time to do the work.

All that said, be sure to keep everyone informed on your progress with it =D and pictures are always good.

Thanks for the answers :) Much appreciated.

And yes, what a find for 3k, I had to battle 4 other guys for it at the auction but I got home with the babe ;) I had some time to look at it better then the rest and I knew she was a pearl.

Little change of plans, finally im gonna stay with the blue interior, gonna be much easier and cheap to fix it in the same color! Since I already got the blue leather seat in the back and most of the intact stuff is blue, I'll just go for it, and with a nice dark blue paint this summer, she's gonna be amazing. (she's white atm)

As for the radio, I'm gonna go with an aftermarket quality radio and a DIY job with the sound system. All I gotta find is a mounting kit for the double deck GM radio and that should be quite easy.

First on the list is the sound system and a middle arm rest console, then im gonna attack the interior side panels (holes for the police screen) and the dash screw holes (police puter).

Talking about the dash, is there a way I could simply sandpaper them holes and fill em with plastic to then repaint it? I know I'll have to recolor the whole dash but is there a special plastic paint I should use? Is that a good/bad thing to do? A little tutorial about that would be very appreciated!

Sorry about the silly questions im just a total newbie when it comes to give back the babes a beauty :)

Oh and I also have a couple shots of the car already, I'll go find a site to host them and I'll come post them asap.

Thanks again and take care!

P.S: Words of wisdom, I wont mess around the airbags! lol

Pictures as requested

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e104/pattheriot/monchar3.jpg

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e104/pattheriot/monchar.jpg

Pictures as requested

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e104/pattheriot/monchar3.jpg

http://i38.photobucket.com/albums/e104/pattheriot/monchar.jpg

Not bad Not bad, Keep it clean and oiled up and it'll run for quite awhile :-P