Anyone has any experience installing kill switches??

Ah. GPS. My relatives Grampappy has a SPOT(?) GPS tracker. He has is tucked away somewhere in his Heep.
Showed me his current gps position on the puter, just over satillite. $15 subscription a month. Plus the unit cost, I'm guessing...

 

I wasn't thinking of breaking one and putting the broken one in when parked overnight / in bad areas as one more layer of security so they don't see it missing and jumper it.

 

Someone turned me on to a latching relay that could be activated by pressing a hidden switch or a non-functioning factory dash switch (just think of the switch that you perhaps never use). It would start the fuel pump along with the ignition of the button is pushed and continue to function until the vehicle is turned off. Then you repeat to start it again.

 

Yeah. 'Cause all the '84's had those.

@Junetaco03 if your truck is a manual trans, you just detered a bunch of potential thieves. At least the joy riding kid crowd.

Your biggest group of potentials is folks who want to get it over your southern border to never return. Your vintage of truck is like gold in Central America.

While I'm sure it's doubtful that the '84 had the clutch interlock (have to have clutch depressed to start truck) that is a good circuit to interrupt and use a discreetly hidden switch to kill. Lots of sports car guys do that. I've even seen switches that were the cigarette lighter, as in you had to push in the lighter to start the vehicle.

As far as tracking, an old cell phone with 'find me' software, hidden in the vehicle works well. Connect it so it's on charge when the vehicle is running, disable all the other apps and screen, and the battery will last hours when the vehicle is not running.

But if it gets flat bedded to be prepped to haul South, your bet protection is a stated value insurance policy.

 

I literally was thinking about laying a concrete slab, some thick chain and connect to rear axle. Hard to do all of that in the middle of the night without a sound. Hah

 

The comments by Indy back in post #10 are spot on.

Under the topic of vehicle theft, assuming the keys were NOT left in the vehicle, it is often the older vehicles that actually get stolen largely because they are easier to steal. Those older vehicles have less anti-theft devices AND the techniques to steal them have been well developed by the criminal community. Assuming we are not talking about the use of a tow truck or flatbed, about 99% of the thefts can be prevented by simply taking the keys with you and that last 1% can be prevented with some simple device such as a kill switch.

There are a LOT of ways to wire a kill switch but it's important to make it somewhat convenient to use. One of the best ones I saw was hiden switch mounted to the shifter (manual transmission). The switch was only closed when the shifter was in a particular gear. You would leave the car parked in 1st or reverse but you had to put it in another gear (2nd) to close the switch and allow power to reach the starter solenoid. It worked like a neutral safety switch on an automatic but it was on a manual transmission and was set up to close in a specific gear.

The rig was wired through a hidden double throw switch so that it could be returned to completely original operation if someone else needed to use the vehicle and you didn't want to inform them of the kill switch.

Another good system is the "Pull Pin" switch where something must be removed (or inserted) to close a hidden switch. The "something" can be an innocuous tool such as a screw driver or an actual part of the vehicle like an ashtray or a bolt. This system works practically well in cluttered, crappy old work trucks that are full of junk. No one ever thinks of pulling that $0.50 screw driver out of that hole in the bottom of the center console to start the truck.

 

^^

We have an installer that uses the defrost button as a un-kill switch to a relay. You have to push the defrost before trying to start the car. It's simple enough yet obscure enough to deter most dickbags.

 

I was quoting @Sebz13 not op.

 

YEP /\ It doesn't take much. You just have to slow them down enough to make them abandon their intention of stealing the car.

 

Best I ever saw on simple key and push button starter vehicles

Chain looped through the steering wheel and around the brake pedal .

Sure one could mess with removing the steering wheel to get the chain off the brake pedal

If your needing to steal that bad a Roll back is in your garage

 

I have and use a steering wheel lock, but it takes seconds to cut through a plastic steering wheel with a hack saw. If you live in a major population center then keeping your keys with you just isn't an effective means of vehicle security; people have relatively new and even brand new locked and anti-theft system armed vehicles stolen while parked in their driveway, on the street, and in parking lots all the time.

Here's that latching relay I was talking about:

http://www.wolstentech.com/products/latchingrelay/latchingrelay.php

 

Holy shit. This is genius.

 

If someone wants to steal a vehicle bad enough, there's not much you can do to stop them.

However, a little deterrence goes a long way. If you can slow them down just a little bit, chances are very good they will move onto a different target.

There's also a difference between a car that is just reported stolen and a car that is reported stolen that was actually stolen.

A drug addict that loans their car to a drug dealer in exchange for drugs and then reports the car as stolen, isn't really a stolen car.
A car that is repossessed for non-payment of a loan and reported stolen, isn't really a stolen car.
A car that is abandoned by the owner and reported stolen after being involved in some criminal activity such as a police pursuit or an accident, isn't really a stolen car.
A car that is towed from private property after being parked without permission and reported stolen, isn't really stolen.

The VAST majority of cars that are actually stolen had the keys in them.
Of the ones that are actually stolen that didn't have the keys in them, most of those thefts could have been prevented with some simple device such as a hidden kill switch. An option to a kill switch is some type of mechanical lock on the steering wheel/pedals, a battery disconnect, a fuel line shut off or some other device to prevent it from being easily started or operated.

Alarms are practically worthless because no one cares if they hear one going off.
GPS trackers help to recover stolen cars but do nothing to prevent the theft.

 

Most of these vehicles still had the steel in the steering wheels I forget all the plastic these days

 

They still have a steel ring under the plastic but it's mild steel and easily cut.