Stolen Truck Recovered!!!!!!!!

...and preferably with rotating knives.

don't bother with the wheel lock....either get a removable steering wheel or wire in a hidden ignition switch up under the dash somewhere. Just wire it to ground the ignition when closed.

Glad to hear you got the truck back!!

I always liked the idea of a smoke grenade under the seat. If you fail to disarm the system, it sets off the smoke. Given that they are designed to be used in big open spaces, in the cab of a truck, you won't be able to see the steering wheel much less remove a stereo or hotwire the thing. Better make it orange so the local fire department doesn't try to fill it with water though. People may ignore alarms and blinking lights, but it is hard to miss the truck billowing orange smoke from the broken rear window, even if it is being towed away at the time!

-- Joe

-- Joseph M. Krzeszewski Mechanical Engineering and stuff snipped-for-privacy@wpi.edu Jack of All Trades, Master of None... Yet

You might not like the idea of getting the truck back after an orange smoke grenade has been expended in the cab however.

Every year at Christmas there is a story of a local police department setting up a car at a shopping mall with the keys in the ignition and a remote door lock and kill switch installed to nab car thieves. They get a few each year this way.

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 07:10:50 GMT, the inscrutable Ernie Leimkuhler spake:

Get your ticket TODAY! I just checked next-day prices to fly to HelL.A. and they came up at $464 from Medford. Take it out a month and it goes down to as low as $212. WTF happened to airfares? And does that include the new Homeland Insecurity fees, I wonder?

--- - Sarcasm is just one more service we offer. -

On Fri, 25 Feb 2005 07:15:08 GMT, the inscrutable Ernie Leimkuhler spake:

How long would it take to defeat one with an 18v cordless recip saw with bimetal blade?

--- - Sarcasm is just one more service we offer. -

They are heat treated steel so normal cutting tools bounce off. An abrasive wheel or diamond saw would still work.

Cordless saws with diamond wheels have pretty much rendered Bicycle Citadel locks useless.

It is impossible to stop someone who REALLY wants your car, but if you make it inconvenient enough he will move on to another car.

Exactly. Or as a lawyer buddy explained to me why he wasn't a criminal attorney:

"When you're a criminal attorney all your clients are by definition unsuccessful. The successful ones use corporate attorneys."

--RC

Want an easier way to pop a club. Buy one of the new explosive style steering wheel cutter. They look like a Y shaped piece of steel with a wedge at the base of the Y. You put them over the wheel rim and pull the trigger, Bang the wedge drives out and breaks the steel in the rim. You reset the wedge and drop in a new charge (they take the large Remington style loads) Move it over and hit it again. On a club you just put it on the shaft. If you don't mind a little labor there is also one that cranks down like a two jaw puller.

My suggestion is to use a club AND add an ignition and fuel pump cutout switch. Plus an alarm that sounds a siren NOT THE HORN. Horns are ignored.

Kinda splains why I long ago decided not to be a thief....

Just not smart enough, I guess........

Did you try Southwest? They have been running some $39 sales recently

You coming to the City of Angeles? Ill buy you a beer. Fly into Ontario and Ill buy you dinner and take you where you need to go anywhere in So. Cal. Hope you dont mind fa$t food.

Gunner

It's better to be a red person in a blue state than a blue person in a red state. As a red person, if your blue neighbors turn into a mob at least you have a gun to protect yourself. As a blue person, your only hope is to appease the red mob with herbal tea and marinated tofu.

(Phil Garding)

Thanks for reminding me of an idea I forgot long ago. Install one of those ole style headlight dimmer switches under the carpet (I use house carpet in my vehicles) say between the clutch and brake peddle. Hood lock wouldn't be a bad idea. Another one would be to make an alarm that only goes off if a door or the hood is opened , no way is someone going to steal even the battery without opening one.

Just wrote it down in one of my endless notebooks , and saw an idea I had last week that I should work on tomorrow.

Glad ya got your truck back, I'd be devastated if my die hard Toy got ripped. Maybe off to the junk yard tomorrow also before they don't have those switches anymore...is it already too late... Probably like trying to explain LP's to kids that only know CD's. LOL , had one of those over the other day that needed their prescription glasses fixed and he goes , " Wow, you have Gun's and Roses on LP !"

Your logic is flawed. But then your conclusion is based on an incorrect assumption, that there are no bright thieves. Wrong. You must watch too many cop shows where the bad guys get caught all the time. In real life many criminals are very successful. Especially the ones involved in auto theft rings. Why else do you think so many cars are stolen. Cars are stolen chopped and the parts sold everyday and people get away with it for years. They make lots of money too. There is also a thriving business of stealing very expensive luxury cars and then shipping them overseas to Asia or to Latin America. So don't think that all car thieves or any kind of thief is stupid. The young guys usually are, but the older professional thieves are smart and rich. The idea that crime doesn't pay or that all criminals get caught eventually is nothing but propaganda put out by cops. How many times have you heard it said that the "big" guys never get caught? There's a lot of truth in that.

Probably like

Chuckle!! Reminds me of the day I inquired of a replacement in-dash stereo receiver for the Nakamichi 700 I wanted to keep when I sold my '86 GMC 1 ton. I was talking to the young sales person (looked like he was in his late teens to me) and said something about 45 RPM records. Blank stare. "You know, the old records we used to buy when we didn't want to buy an album. Singles, 45 RPM records, the ones with the big hole in them."

Blank stare.

He'd never heard of them.

My gawd, do you know how that makes me feel? I still remember 78's, which were the only thing available in the music stores. Long before the LP's hit the market. Sigh.

I guess I can find comfort in *not* remembering the old cylinder recordings, or the one sided 78's that were ¼" thick.

Harold

This isn't so bad. My problem around here (and I'm *not* that old) is that all the cops in the town look like they're 16 years old. I have the urge to ask them "does your mother know you're out this late, walking around with a gun, young man?"

Jim

"Hawke" wrote: (clip) incorrect assumption, that there are no bright thieves. Wrong. (clip) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ That may be true, but it is a lot more fun to laugh at the dumb ones.

I got kicked outta town by one of those. Funny, I ran into his acquaintance just last week. Some thing about that perfect across the street power side into a space that I wouldn't bother trying if I was right on top of it going the other direction (no parking spaces in town, cept that one). Was right behind me before I did it. He commented on my parking and I looked down and it looked perfect to me, 8" from the curb exactly from the right wheels and equidistant between the other cars. Made me say my abc's without rhyming ... ... ... punk cop goes "Ya missed one." I go "Was it No.9 ?" LOL he told me to leave town immediately and never come back. So , I think this is a great web surfing game. This should be fun. Ahhh not exactly. Maybe that's what the F4 thread was about, but skimming through it I didn't see mention of what I'm talking about.

Seriously, I think I recall seeing a one sided 78. Don't remember them per se. Bailed someone out the other week and was directed in a certain place in the office for a plastic straight edge and found a really nice slide rule. How do ya get them over sentimental obstacles?

Went to the junkyard Sun. doing exploratory surgery of types of cars like the wife's POJ and saw a '64-66 Ranchero after pawing through a couple of big cars and got one. Almost got out of there for free then ended up in the long car lines and staring at the non existent truck line, Hmm Ranchero... car / truck... The parts guy is instant $2.75 and pushes the button and looks at me very curiously " Where did you find this...?" I would have lost it , but having one in hand to show the parts counter helps. One line works at least, don't know about why it has 4 wires. The customer behind me wanted to know also.

Big grin!

Lets see. That would be from Jim's book "How to Make Friends and Influence People"?

Let me explain it to you, Jim. When you get to my age, everyone looks like a kid. Hell, even you do, at least in my mind. I have to be perfectly honest and say that's one thing I never expected.

When I think of myself, I still see that young guy with dark brown hair. When I look in a mirror, I'm shocked at what I see----almost totally white hair---wrinkled face (not too badly, but I'm no kid) and a longer forehead than I remember.

But I still don't antagonize those young cops!

Harold

Likewise, Harold. This is a pretty small town, and I've gotten to know a number of them. They're pretty nice folks and they have a tough job to do, for a number of reasons. They've gone out of their way to be helpful on several occasions.

The only exception recently was the cop who pulled my wife over while she was driving my pickup truck.

NY recently changed the color it its license plates, they used to be red/white, with the statue of liberty on them. I sorta liked them but would not have paid the extra money to keep the same number - except my wife made a mistake when renewing the registration, and wound up paying an extra 20 bucks to do just that. Oh well says I, no big deal. I stuck the new plates aside in the drawer and forgot about them.

Because the numbers were the same, everything matched up and almost a year went by. I didn't realize that I was just about the only guy driving around with the old plates.

My wife took my truck one day to haul some items, and sure enough a cop lights up her lights behind my wife, and pulls her over. Turns out the old plates are no good anymore. I think she must have figured she was catching somebody with an expired registration, because there was a great deal of inspection and hemming and hawing about the various documents and stickers on the car.

Pretty soon there were about five cop cars all standing by, with their roof lights flashing. My wife said there were anxious folks peeping out from behind their curtains in the neighborhood to see what kind of bank robber had been aprehended.

She said that one of they younger cops came over and peered at her registration sticker on the window. "Hmm. Same number and everything" he commented. She said he seemed both amused and sympathetic. But not willing to step on the lady cop's toes about it.

The lady who pulled Nora over wrote her a $50 ticket even though it was plain the new plates were at home, and they could be put on within the hour. I went down to city hall the next day to pay the fine in cash. I resisted the urge to pay it in nickels.

From that point on, whenever we see some person pulled over by the police in town, we both nod sagely to ourselves, it's probably another one of those incorrigible, wrong-color license plate fiends. Good thing they caught him. Keep the city safe for all the good citizens with the right color plates.

The story does have an amusing footnote though. Every year the local police association calls, and asks if we want to purchase tickets to the annual 'event,' it's something different each year. Typically we just say we'd just like to make a contribution instead.

This last year though, Nora and I both picked up the phone at the same time, so we both got the same spiel from the guy. Policemen's benefit, blah blah, we often contributed, etc.

He was somewhat non-plussed when we both burst out laughing. Even more so when we explained that we had already contributed fifty bucks to the policemen's charity, and how this had occurred. Next time maybe they'll cut the plate bandit a break....

Jim