Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Secure-er storage.
Driving a car that can be unlocked with a boxcutter, I often wind up relying on the trunk to store valuables. Since the Z3 does not have a remote trunk release, I don't really have to worry about someone doing a quick smash-n-grab on the trunk's contents, but if it did, I'd either disable it or go with this handy mod.
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9 comments:
I thought it was going to be this...
Buddy of mine in high school had an MG. He was also wickedly smart and designed his own engine parts which he machined himself.
Being so brilliant, he tired of having people slash his top so he rigged up some chicken wire, a couple of capacitors the size of a soda can, and a spare car battery.
One day, he came out to his car to see a small slash surrounded by blackened bits. He replaced the top and never again had the problem.
I've been thinking about a small handgun safe for my truck since all it would take is a smashed window to get my gun. I'm just spending too much on guns and ammo right now to buy one...
After accidentally popping my trunk with the car parked in the driveway once (something in my pocket pushed the trunk button on the key fob---good thing it wasn't raining), I did something similar. I put an aircraft-style, protected SPDT switch inside my trunk, which when flipped cuts the power wire to the trunk-release solenoid. That way, if I'm traveling or shopping, I can flip the switch when I put stuff in the trunk, and disable the trunk solenoid entirely.
First thing in my head was
Truck Monkey. . .
If you want to put a different switch in, put in a floor mounted light dimmer switch. If you are old enough to remember them they were common years ago. Just drill a hole in the floorboard over to the side and mount the switch. Then take the wires off the trunk switch and splice one of them over to the dimmer switch. Most folks will never figure out what it does so you now have to press both to get the trunk to open.
It works great as an ignition cut off switch also.
Joseph,
If you have $30-40 you can get a locking box from Center of Mass (bought mine at Sportsman's Warehouse but you can order online) that works just fine, no hard mounting required.
It'll stop a smash and grab theft and is well worth the money. From personal experience, having a gun stolen from a vehicle and not knowing what the thief might do with it is a horrible feeling.
One ninja trick you can pull besides that is to wire in a fusible link between the solenoid and the starter, with a relay to bypass it with properly sized wire. Thusly, you have to push a discreet (and discrete) button to close the relay, otherwise your thief's attempt to start your car disables it in a sneaky, not-easily-detected way. He'd probably slash your seats and take your radio, but you'd probably still have your car at the end of the day.
My wife's Pontiac has a mechanical (cable operated) trunk release, not electrical, so this wouldn't work. I usually disconnect them anyway, I don't like remote trunk releases as a general rule.
I can't remember which show it was where a thief that had just robbed a liquor store got stopped for something totally unrelated and popped the trunk release as he was getting out of the car.
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