(Photos by Scott Liggett) Yesterday we asked you if you had ever experienced the crappiness of a car theft. We refernced Jalopnik’s Jason Torchinsky who had his VW Beetle stolen in LA from right in front of his house. Thankfully the car was recovered after being found by readers and tracked down to a crappy neighborhood in East LA. It was relieved of its roof rack, engine, radio, and other stuff, but the car itself was there and intact. He’s going to fix it. Later that day we got a couple photos from Scott that depicted a K5 Blazer with a big steel bar chained to its wheel at the Long Beach Swap Meet as a means to thwart thieves from driving off with the truck. We thought that was kind of basic and cool and it reminded us of our uncle who used to logging chain the gas and brake pedals of his Ramcharger together.
In a slightly more modern approach, we wired the two-step in Buford T Justice up to be a bit of a theft prevention device. The two step is set at 2200 RPM and we wired it to a toggle switch that we hid. At night when we lock the car up, we flip the switch and if anyone tries to drive away in the car, they’ll be foot to the floor in a popping, banging, noise making Caprice that won’t be shifting out of first gear….ever.
Do you have any tried and true or home brewed theft prevention solutions for your car or truck?
BangShift Question Of The Day: Do You Do Anything Specific To Protect Your Car From Theft?
When I lived in bad areas I always ran a kill switch, but, one thing I do know is if they want it bad enough they’re probably going to get it.
Example: I know of a guy that had a 69 Mach 1 stolen from in front of his house. They threw grease down behind the tires and winched it onto a trailer.
Thanks Gary… now even the stupid thieves know this trick… nice going da
a very simple (but effective) deterant is a legth of chain that just reaches from your brake pedal to your shifter in park or manual in reverse and a padlaock each end does the job nicely.
After my neighbors car trailer was stolen, I made a length of cable to lock the wheels together on my trailer. That and a lock on the tongue.
Using the type of repo truck drop the tail gate hook and go slide rollers under the rear wheels and its gone…..and you can be car jacked in traffic…….. What’s a mother to do…
I wanted to run a hidden toggle for the electric fuel pump so they would get into traffic and be up the creek haha it turned out easier to kill the whole thing. Also, shaved door handles work good
The chain deal has worked for me.
Many years ago, my wife came home from grocery shopping and left the keys to a hatchback in the lock cylinder. The rear of the car was near the sidewalk.
She later mentioned she couldn’t find her wad-o-keys which had a house key on it.
A neighbor girl mentioned she’d seen a coupla guys walk real close to the rear of the car.
Okay, I thought I’d foil a theft attempt by putting the car in the garage. Later, I decided to put the car back outside with the brake pedal chained to the steering wheel.
Shortening the story, sho-nuf, two guys got into the car and rolled it outa the driveway.
Of course, the driver couldn’t turn the steering wheel and the car ended up against a tree directly across the street. The spoiler got a ka-whang on it.
Through pure serendipity, cops arrive in less than two minutes after being called (this is at 2:00 A.M.) and magically bring back the perps. (I think [the cops] musta seen ’em down the street when they were approaching.) The cops put one in each of two cars and questioned them. I’m assuming the perps were each told they were blamed by the other.
After some negotiations, the cops took the perps home and found the wad-o-keys in their back yard and returned it (remember the house key?). A third guy showed up and agreed to pay for the body damage and all worked out.
Yes, a big chain can be a visual deterrent (if the perp sees it) and a loss-preventer if he’s not equipped to cut it.
Just a .38 snub nose…
I agree with Chuck. A gun works fine.
Back in the old west days, if you stole a man’s horse, you were hung from the tallest tree. I think that’s what we should do to the guys who steel cars today.
I took the rotor out of my distributor once when I parked my car, but didn’t take it with me. I left it in the glove box. Car was gone when I returned.
The big thing here in FL is boat theft. I used two locks on my trailer tongue, plus ran a chain between the left and right wheels.
I will pull the rotor, the coil wire and fuses and carry them in with me. I will also disconnect the ballast resistoror unplug one of the harnesses off the fire wall, takes all or 30 seconds to do…If they are able to get by all that then more power to them.
There was a thread like this in Pirate 4×4 way back when. I remember a pic of a guy with a old Scout with a T18 and a Dana 20 t-case. He’d welded a link of chain to each of the shifters and bent them slightly so that when the transfer was in low range and the trans was in reverse, you could slip a padlock thru em and bind em together. His reasoning was it was easy enough to start, half the time you didn’t even need the key to unlock the ignition, and the handy solenoid was dead easy to hotwire, but if someone DID bother to get it started, the were going nowhere fast. Not to mention welded diffs yelping the hell out of bias swampers as the thing hopped around in low range on pavement. Being a Scout, it was probably too ugly to steal, but in California, whatever ain’t chained down…
I’m just finishing rewiring my Scout II and have the gas tank out. hidden fuel shut off in the fuel line and hidden kill switch on the main power to the fusebox/ignition. Chains and padlocks for visiting super sketchy areas/breakdowns.
Also thinking of welding a hoop for padlock to prevent the hood being opened without unlocking it. Too many tweakers out there looking for opportunities.
used to chain the spare tire to the steering wheel in my old ’68 C10, seemed to work well enough, truck was broken into, but never stolen lol Yep, “clubs” were around at the time, but hey, I already had the chain and padlock handy…
When I store it for the winter, all fuses get pulled, fuel line is plugged, and the wheels come off and go in a separate storage bay. They could always pull it out with a winch after knocking it off the jack stands, but they’d have to tear a hole through the I-beam it’s bolted to first.
Alhough there isnt much one can do to stop a determined and skilled thief, almost anything will stop the opportunist. They are in greater number.
Personally, I use a club, a flashing red light (You know like an alarm has but no alarm. No one pays attention to alarms anyways.) Two kill switches, ignition and nuetral safety switch as well. The car parked five feet from the bedroom window with the neighbors dog who barks at every wind gust helps too.
My secret is to just drive a messy POS! I left my Cherokee parked in a public lot near the ball field in an area congested with homeless and meth heads. I left the keys in it and a huge bag of Aluminum cans in the back. Parked it all day and when I went back to it after work it had not been touched….
Way back, Loren had been working on my then running ’67 Mustang out in the street. He had removed the curbside wheels for some reason. Someone got in it and got it started then drove it off the jackstands, fleeing the scene they left tools in it with names on them but this was prior internet so we never really found who did it. They didn’t get the car though!
Model A coils work great…the thief will get a shock that they will never forget…it will knock them on their butts!!!!
I usually just pull the motor.
I just spit coffee on my screen!!! LOL
I will be running a quick release steering wheel on the new car. I think it will be fun to chain it somewhere in the back with just enough length to not reach the column.