# Fire Engine and Fire Truck Body Repair near Tustin

> Fire engine body repair at OCRV Center covers welded aluminum compartment boxes, roll up shutter doors and their tracks, hose beds, running boards, diamond plate, chrome and the pump panel enclosure, plus emergency lighting and warning lens work. Repaired panels are matched into high gloss single stage fire engine red. Pump internals, engine and drive system components go back to your apparatus dealer.

Source: https://ocrv.biz/vehicles/buses-fleet/fire-engine-repair/
Business: OCRV Center, 23281 La Palma Ave, Yorba Linda, CA 92887. (949) 799-3387. Serving Tustin, California.
Ballpark range: $1,500 to $50,000. Posted rates at https://ocrv.biz/prices/

## Aluminum bodywork

Fire apparatus bodies are welded aluminum, and that single fact drives most of what happens on the estimate. The compartment boxes are fabricated as sealed structures, extruded corner posts with sheet skins welded in, then bolted or through fastened to a subframe that lets the body move relative to the chassis rails without tearing itself.

Aluminum does not behave like steel under impact. It work hardens where it bends, so a crease that got pushed back out once will crack if it is worked twice. It also cannot be heat straightened the way steel can without losing temper in the affected zone. The practical result is that apparatus body repair leans toward sectioning and rewelding rather than pulling and filling, and the estimate reflects the extra fabrication hours that implies.

Corrosion is the other aluminum issue. Where a stainless fastener passes through an aluminum panel, or where a steel bracket contacts the body, galvanic attack starts at the interface and works outward under the paint. That gets isolated properly on reassembly, not just cleaned and painted over.

## Roll up shutters and their tracks

Roll up compartment doors have almost entirely displaced hinged doors on newer apparatus, and they bring a specific failure set. The slat curtain runs in a track on each side, up over a radius, and onto a spring loaded roller in the header. Anything that distorts the compartment opening distorts the track, and a track out of parallel by a small amount will bind the curtain at exactly the wrong moment.

The symptoms crews report are all the same complaint in different words: the door drags near the top, it will not latch square, it rolls up crooked, or it needs two hands. All four usually trace to compartment opening geometry rather than the door hardware. Straightening the opening back to square and reinstating the track parallelism fixes far more of these than replacing the curtain does.

Roll up and swing door service is posted at $400 to $4,500 across 2 to 18 hours. Slats are replaced individually where a single slat is creased, since a full curtain swap is rarely necessary if the track is corrected.

## Hose bed, running boards, chrome and diamond plate

The hose bed floor and the divider panels take abuse from loading crews and from wet load weight. Cracked divider mounts and dished bed floors are welded and reinforced rather than shimmed. Running boards and the tailboard are the highest traffic surfaces on the whole apparatus, and their treadplate wears smooth in the step zones long before anything else on the truck looks tired.

Diamond plate and polished chrome are where an apparatus repair either looks correct or looks obviously repaired. Replacement diamond plate has to match the existing pattern direction and the existing finish level, and a new bright panel next to twenty year old plate reads as a patch even when the fit is perfect. Where possible, existing plate is straightened and refinished rather than swapped, and where a piece must be replaced, the adjacent pieces are brought up to match.

Handrails, compartment trim and step lights come off for panel work and go back with new isolating hardware. Nothing gets reinstalled through a repaired panel without backing.

## Pump panel enclosure and high gloss red

The pump panel enclosure is the body structure around the operator panel: side sheets, the panel frame, the access doors and the lighting. It is body work and it is in scope. What is inside the pump, the plumbing and the valve gear, is not, and goes back to your apparatus service dealer.

Fire engine red is normally sprayed as a high gloss single stage, and single stage red is the least forgiving finish in this building. There is no clear layer to hide texture, so the repaired panel has to be laid down at the same film build and the same flow as the surrounding work, and any dry edge shows. Red pigment also fades faster than almost any other color under Southern California sun, so a panel matched to a paint code rather than to the truck will read pink or orange next to a ten year old body.

The method is a spray out card compared against the actual panel outdoors, a blend into the adjacent surface where the geometry allows one, and a full compartment face sprayed where it does not. Color match paint blending is posted at **$500 to $5,000** at 4 to 25 hours, and full refinish at **$5,000 to $35,000** at 40 to 250 hours. See the [prices page](/prices/) for the complete posted bands.

## Lighting, striping and apparatus down time

Warning light lenses crack, bezels break, and brackets bend in the same low speed contacts that damage the body around them. Lens and bracket work is done alongside the panel repair so the light package goes back once rather than twice. Light bar, strobe and emergency lighting install is posted at $400 to $3,500 at 2 to 14 hours, and reflective tape and compliance marking at $250 to $1,200 at 1 to 6 hours.

| Apparatus body work | Ballpark | Labor hours 

| Fleet collision repair and paint refinish | $1,500 to $50,000 | 10 to 250 hours 
| Cab body repair, door, hood, fender, bumper | $750 to $12,000 | 5 to 60 hours 
| Light bar, strobe and emergency lighting install | $400 to $3,500 | 2 to 14 hours 
| Reflective tape and compliance marking | $250 to $1,200 | 1 to 6 hours 

Down time is the number a chief actually cares about. An apparatus out of service means a reserve rig in the bay, so the work here is staged: parts and panels are fabricated and finished ahead of the vehicle arriving where the damage allows it, and the truck comes in for fitting, spraying and reassembly rather than sitting in a bay waiting on a shipment. Tell us the date the reserve has to go back and the schedule is built backward from it.

## What is included

- Damage mapping on the aluminum body with a sectioning plan before any welding starts
- Compartment opening squared and shutter track parallelism reinstated
- Isolating hardware renewed at every steel to aluminum interface
- Diamond plate straightened and refinished, or replaced with pattern and finish matched
- Spray out card checked against the actual apparatus outdoors before color is committed
- Warning light lenses, bezels and brackets refitted with the body repair, not after it
- Staged scheduling built backward from the date your reserve rig has to return

## Questions

### Can a creased aluminum compartment panel be pulled straight?

Once, sometimes. Aluminum work hardens at the bend and cracks if it is worked twice, and it cannot be heat straightened without losing temper. Sectioning the damaged area out and welding in new material is usually the sounder repair on apparatus.

### The roll up door drags. Is that a door problem?

Usually not. It is nearly always compartment opening geometry: the opening is out of square, so the side tracks are no longer parallel and the curtain binds. Squaring the opening and correcting the track fixes most of these without a new curtain.

### Will a repaired panel match our faded red?

It is matched to the truck, not to a code. A spray out card is compared against the actual panel outdoors, then the repair is blended into the adjacent surface, or the full compartment face is sprayed where there is no geometry to blend into.

### Do you work on the pump itself?

No. The pump panel enclosure, its sheet metal, doors and lighting are body work and are handled here. Pump internals, plumbing, valve gear, engine and drive system components go back to your apparatus service dealer.

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- [Tow Trucks](https://ocrv.biz/vehicles/buses-fleet/tow-truck-repair/)
- [Welding and Metal Fabrication](https://ocrv.biz/services/custom-fabrication/welding-metal-fabrication/)
- [Custom Color Matching](https://ocrv.biz/services/paint-refinishing/custom-color-matching/)
- [Collision and Structural Services](https://ocrv.biz/services/collision-structural/)
- [Prices and Posted Rates](https://ocrv.biz/prices/)