Thieves know a good thing when they see it, and it seems our classic trucks are being targeted more often. If you have an automatic in your truck here is a simple recipe for a kill switch. On the lower top portion of the steering column there is a sliding switch called the neutral safety switch. There are 4 wires total in the switch; 2 hot wires coming in and 2 circuit wires going out. One wire goes to the reverse lights and the other wire supplies 12 volts to the starter relay over near the battery. When the truck is in park or neutral 12 volts is completed to the relay so that when you hit start the relay closes and "Bam" the juice flows to the starter. Locate the hot incoming wire to the relay and cut it several inches before the switch. Go to radio shack and for a few bucks you can buy either a momentary pushbutton switch or a toggle switch-the kind that you can put through a drilled hole and secure with a nut on the outside. Now sit in the seat of your pickup and take your left hand and reach down under the bottom lip of the instrument panel and thats where you drill your hole for your switch. Install the switch upside down in the hole. Most have two thin nuts so you can adjust the height or depth of the switch. Now with 2 pieces of new wire wire it in series where you made the cut in your hot wire. If you've done it right when you turn the key to start nothing happens unless you depress the switch and hold it in if it's momentary or flip it over if it's a toggle. I did the momentary myself cause it's low profile and it is not visable from the seat. With the momentary switch every time you start the truck you must use 2 hands; one to press and hold the hidden button and the other to start. Maybe this idea may help someone else prevent the heartache of our member in the recent post. I would like to hear some other ideas as I may do more than one switch. Of course no switch will work if they haul it away on a flat bed but these ideas might stop the punk thieves.

 

Sorry, that is one of the first places thieves look for a fuel cutoff or kill switch... They are looking under the dash anyway.

 

I have a James Bond setup on my truck. When you steal it a countdown begins and if you don't deactivate the bombs.....BOOOOOOM! No more bad guy. I build everything out of fireproof materials so I don't have to spend too much time putting things back together. ;-P

 

A friend of mine works as an installer in an audio shop and sees all kinds of interesting stuff. One of his customers had his rig setup with a cig lighter as the "switch". He wired his ignition power through the lighter so you had to push it in to be able to run the car. You could do this with the starter as well but that's easy to bypass. Of course if you're driving and a passenger decides to pull the lighter you're in trouble. It could be done with any one of a number of switches that are already in the truck but again I would make sure you do this with the ignition and not the starter. Some people have mentioned running an electric fuel pump with a hidden switch so the theive can get the truck started but then it dies and won't restart. I have a hidden switch rigged that cuts power to my ignition. It would be pretty tough to track down in my mess of electronics.

 

A couple of multi position rotory switches would be nice wired in sequence. If they were 8 position, that would be 64 combinations.

Another thought is to have an easily found "kill switch" that is actually hooked to the horn through a latching relay. (you have to find the other DPDT switch to reset it, or it just keeps blasting)

 

Ok then Im going to add another one activated by the ashtray. Push it in and it wont start, pull it out to fire it up. Or how about a fuel cutoff located back in the frame activated by a remote with a specially keyed manual backup. Make it so tough to get to that they need to bring a lift to mess with it. I like the James Bond idea but i prefer a sawed off shotgun under the dash activated by the clutch pedal-a 210 gauge would do so it wouldnt damage the seat behind the guy.

 

On my old VW I had one of the vent ***** rigged to a kill switch. It also had to be set or when you opened the gas filler cover it set off the horn. The horn latched in thru a relay and had to be deactivated. That kept the thieves from siphoning my gas. That is going to be a problem for everyone soon with gas prices the way they are.

 

I wonder how abvious it would be to turn your Hi-beam switch into your kill switch? I mean, who would think to try something so obvious?

 

I take the coil to distributor off and put it in my pocket

 

My kill switch shorts the two reluctor input leads together going to the DSII. The leads are hidden and wrapped inside the loom from the distributor to the DSII box. This scheme will defeat any attempt to hotwire the DSII box at the key or under the hood. Sorry, I won't publish where I hid the toggle, but it is in a totally blind location. You'll have to use your own imagination on that.

I developed an alternate kill system for that uses a slave relay and a reed switch that is involves concealing the reed switch behind any plastic component. Any time you want to start the vehicle the user passes a magnet past the concealed switch, which activates a latching relay circuit. The nice thing about this design is in defaults back to "killed" everytime the vehicle is switched off.
Here is the schematic:




(For some reason the top part gets cut on the diagram, this is "RUN" V+ from the ignition switch, the relay drops out whenever the key is switched off.)

 

Yea-how bout take the coil to distributor wire off and replace it with a fake. Or remove the rotor and stick it in your pocket.

 

best one I have seen was taking the wire off of the seat belt sensor (yeah I know the older trucks don't use it but you can switch belts or use your imagination) hook that as the ground for a relay under the hood that turns on power to the starter relay. so you can't activate the starter unless you fasten your seatbelt, and not many thieves even think of putting thier seatbelts on. You can also put it on the power side of your ignition box but then you have to have the seatbelt on all the time or it kills the ignition (actually suprised the feds haven't mandated that system)

 

nice idea but a big problem. sure that will only break the starter circuit . you still have power to the ignition. all someone needs to do is cross the starter relay with a screwdriver and it starts up. and also because the whole ignition switch is sold at a parts store for 20.00 with key all they need to do is pull the connector off the back of yours put in theirs and turn the key it takes 15 seconds tops

 

actually suprised the feds haven't mandated that system)


the old ranchero had that feature if you did not buckle up it would not start.

 

Ecuri, I humbly bow before you. Where did you come up with that awesome idea or is that something you can buy? Are you an electrical wizard or what??