xrmike
Part of things
Posts: 165
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Dec 22, 2012 14:05:10 GMT
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After reading so many heart breaking posts of stolen cars, I thought I would add some usefull tips that I have learnt over the years to help avoid being a victim. For less than £100, you can sleep at night knowing that you have done a few simple measures to ensure your retro stands a good chance. 1 £30-Car alarm: www.maplin.co.uk/easy-fit-car-alarm-347077Shock sensor and voltage drop sensor with flashing LED. This is the first step. It wont stop your car from being taken, but should wake you and others up to alert you should anyone try. The alarm is as basic as you can get, but will only be as good as your installation. You want to be wiring it in neatly, so soldering connections and wrapping wires in black tape so it blends in is a start. Route the wires along with the cars OEM wiring, sharing the engine bay clips and fittings. Fit the alarm unit in a dry place as its not waterproof. It'll take approx 2 hours of your time. Keep wires away from moving parts and heat etc. REMEMBER its all about the neatness of your installation. 2 £10 Home made Immobiliser: Help stop your car being driven away. Go and buy some heavy duty wiring and a decent on/off switch. Using either the ignition coil (Petrol) wiring or stop switch on injection pump (Diesel) wiring, cut the wire and wire these up to a switch. What switch you use and where you mount it is up to you. Using an extra fog lamp switch from the scrappy in a dashboard blank is neat. Again as per post above, the effectivness is down to the installation. Use soldered joints, black tape and run the wires along the engine bay wiring sharing the mounting clips etc. Keep wires away from moving parts and heat etc. 3 £40-60 Disklock (Second-hand): www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/product_storeId_10001_catalogId_10151_categoryId_165565_productId_216879_langId_-1?cm_mmc=Shopping-_-Google%20Product%20Search-_-Travel%20%26%20Touring%2FTravel%20Accessories%2FCar%20Security-_-Disklok%20Steering%20Lock%20(Silver)%20Small&source=shoppingThe above link shows the steering wheel lock, but getting one off ebay second hand cuts the costs. Measure your steering wheel before buying, and choose one with two keys. You don't want it to be a tight fit, but at the same time not too loose. It must be able to rotate easily on the wheel once fitted. Get a yellow one if you can, much brighter at night. Remember these things are heavy, don't have it laying around in your car when driving, it slides about and might get under your feet. So there you go. Three easy steps within a £100 budget to help protect your retro. |
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Dec 22, 2012 15:11:48 GMT
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I removed the wibblepoo Clifford G4 alarm off the Golf (it was "immoblising" whilst driving)
I've used a Disclock on my last 3 retros and as soon as they see it, they don't bother. Excellent bit of kit.
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1993 Mercedes-Benz 190e LE in Azzuro Blue.
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Dec 22, 2012 15:14:53 GMT
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Yeah I can vouch for the disklock.
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Dec 22, 2012 16:23:07 GMT
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might have to get one of those disklocks because I'm afrade to put my polo anywhere :/
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stealthstylz
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 14,841
Club RR Member Number: 174
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Dec 22, 2012 17:35:58 GMT
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A good place to put an immobiliser switch is inside the gearstick gaiter.
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Dec 22, 2012 17:42:36 GMT
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^^^^and then post it on here to tell the world lol
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nitro
Part of things
Posts: 685
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Dec 22, 2012 19:02:56 GMT
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Just get a after market steering wheel and a quick relese boss kit ;-) always puts soneone off if there isnt a steering wheel in the car lol
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stealthstylz
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 14,841
Club RR Member Number: 174
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Dec 22, 2012 19:18:09 GMT
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They still wouldn't find it, just put a microswitch in there so you squeeze it through the gaiter, then a relay doing the actual work of cutting the power.
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andyborris
Posted a lot
Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.
Posts: 2,165
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Dec 22, 2012 20:14:45 GMT
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A good one if you have a electric fuel pump is a switch in the fuel pump circuit. Put the switch in a locked boot, the engine will run till the carbs go dry, then won't restart.
Thieves then panic and abandon car!
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rodney
Posted a lot
https://www.facebook.com/RD-vehicle-transport-and-recovery-services-525622614268010/
Posts: 1,677
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Dec 22, 2012 20:48:46 GMT
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useless if your car gets towed ,
disclocks are decent , a working alarm with no giveaway make stickers , and a simcard tracker hidden in the car, ring it and it txts you its location,.
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facebook: rodney dean / rd transport  |
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mirafioriman
Posted a lot
My next project.......
Posts: 1,361
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Dec 23, 2012 15:34:36 GMT
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Got any more info on the 'simcard tracker'?
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ChasR
RR Helper
motivation
Posts: 10,195
Club RR Member Number: 170
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Dec 23, 2012 19:34:45 GMT
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I removed the wibblepoo Clifford G4 alarm off the Golf (it was "immoblising" whilst driving) I've used a Disclock on my last 3 retros and as soon as they see it, they don't bother. Excellent bit of kit. I have had cars before with troublesome Cliffords. Maybe I have been talked into them, but IME the issue seems to be with the installation of the alarms (I.E a CAT 1 Installed for £250, when the parts themselves are not far off that price). Yet people still seem to think it takes minutes to correctly install an alarm and expect it to work. Like many things, a working Clifford is a great asset to have on a car (and they do exist  ). A poorly installed one can be a thing of nightmares however (on a car which I bought with a Clifford G5 installed it took me all of 20 minutes to rip the entire system out (it takes a friend of mine (who is an ex-Directed worker) around half a day to correctly install one)!). |
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Dec 23, 2012 20:57:29 GMT
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Got any more info on the 'simcard tracker'? I have been looking for one of those too. I know they exist, but have yet to find a cheap solution. The easiest way to do it yourself I can think of is to have an old Android phone on a charger wired in permanently and leave an app running that waits for any movement and fires up its internal GPS and texts you. But you still need to keep a SIM card topped up or on a contract. And if you get a text message and you're miles away there's not a lot you can do about it. I'm working on a slightly more elaborate thing at the moment: I've got a £15 Linux computer (a WR703N - you can find them on Ebay), a £3 a month Vodafone 3G dongle, a GPS aerial and a handful of old webcams (£2 a pop from a local shop) which I'll dot around the vehicle. I've also got a £25 alarm fitted. The idea is when the alarm goes off, the computer starts taking photos and uploads them straight to the internet. It'll also start texting me with regular updates of its position and in the worst case at least I can pass the mug shots and the location of the yard it ends up at onto the Police. Who knows, it might work. Other than that, as above I prefer a secret switch to immobilize it. I've saved one car because of having that. |
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Dec 23, 2012 22:19:11 GMT
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A hidden switch on the feed to the coil is fine, but an experienced joyrider will know what to do to bypass this in seconds. As an alternative, isolate the coil from the engine block/chassis ( line the coil clamp with rubber) and earth the coil through the hidden switch - its different enough to confuse the average thief.
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1986 Panda 4x4.
1990 Metro Sport.
1999 Ford Escort estate.
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Dec 24, 2012 10:26:54 GMT
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Good idea for a topic! Some top tips too.
I always smile at these home made tracker ideas. You can get one professionally fitted for like £175. I would guess that would be a lot more reliable. Your other thing is you may be able to find your car but if its in some traveller camp or yard behind a fence with a greasy dog what you going to do about it? Previous experience suggests the police won't act on a member of the public telling them where a stolen car is. However if you have a proper tracker run through a recognised company the cops will go in and recover the car, maybe even arrest the bad guys.
Cosmic Deadlocks saved my old Mk3 Cortina on more than one occasion, although oddly I have'nt fitted them on any of my other cars since.
I know they worked because I'd come back and find the regular locks sprung but the deadlocks still in place.
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1937 Austin Street Rod - 1941 Wolseley Not Rod - 1956 Humber Hawk - 1957 Daimler Conquest - 1966 Buick LeSabre - 1968 Plymouth Sport Fury - 1968 Ford Galaxie - 1969 Ford Country Squire - 1969 Mercury Marquis - 1970 Morris Minor - 1970 Buick Skylark - 1970 Ford Galaxie - 1971 Ford Galaxie - 1976 Continental Mark IV - 1976 Ford Capri - 1976 Rover V8 - 1994 Ford Fiesta
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Dec 24, 2012 12:28:08 GMT
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That's a fair point and to be honest I hadn't realised you could get an officially endorsed tracker fitted that cheaply. Would the Police really be willing to go to the effort and take the risk of raiding said yard or camp though with just a tracker as evidence?
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xrmike
Part of things
Posts: 165
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Dec 24, 2012 18:20:07 GMT
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A hidden switch on the feed to the coil is fine, but an experienced joyrider will know what to do to bypass this in seconds. As an alternative, isolate the coil from the engine block/chassis ( line the coil clamp with rubber) and earth the coil through the hidden switch - its different enough to confuse the average thief. I totally agree. Although it'll still make the joy rider have to spend more time finding a way to bypass the home made immobiliser, but combined with a Disklock steering lock as I recomended it'll be a very slim chance that the joy rider will even bother to try. I've suggested the 3 ways of protecting your car but I highly advise they are all used together. |
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xrmike
Part of things
Posts: 165
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Dec 24, 2012 18:22:16 GMT
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Good idea for a topic! Some top tips too. Thanks. Prehaps Admin can make it a sticky? As above although they are very basic ways, combine the 3 together and you have quite an effective security setup for £100 or less. |
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Dec 24, 2012 18:37:47 GMT
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If you can tell the police where a car is they will act. Police have been guided in before when iPhones have been left in the boot of the car stolen. Most cars are stolen by means of key burglary/tow away due to ever better security systems. If a member of public can tell police where a car is they will locate the vehicle. This is dependent obviously on resources etc. if its a Friday night with fights breaking out there may be a delay. If anyone has experience of these SIM card tracking systems I would be interested to hear from them.
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Dec 25, 2012 14:28:02 GMT
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I did a fair bit of reading up on the old Clifford G4 and they were notorious for problems once they got a bit older. I've no doubt that modern alarms are good but that G4 was an absolute pain. The siren had packed up and the fob was on it's last legs. When it started immoblising the car whilst driving, that was the push for me rip it out.
I got hold of an installation diagram for it, made a brew and got stuck into it. I took my time, used my Aldi soldering iron and removed the lot in about 4 hours.
The yellow disclock especially, is an excellent deterrant.
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1993 Mercedes-Benz 190e LE in Azzuro Blue.
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). A poorly installed one can be a thing of nightmares however (on a car which I bought with a Clifford G5 installed it took me all of 20 minutes to rip the entire system out (it takes a friend of mine (who is an ex-Directed worker) around half a day to correctly install one)!).
