Well yesterday someone decided to play a joke on my son and swapped the two small wires on the solonoid on the 74. My fast thinking son noticed something wasn't right when he started the car so he shut it off only it didn't shut off. He grabbed a 1/2" wrench and disconnected the battery cable then called me. After work and his school we went to fix the car. Ended up having to replace the starter, solonoid, battery, cables and ignition switch in the hot Arizona sun. The car now has a cable locking the hood shut. Looking at other more permanent solutions (any ideas?). I think I know who is responsible and once I have the proof they will pay for what they have done one way or another. I love people.
Heres a hidden hood pin, a little pricey but I've seen them installed on early model mustangs. http://www.wmsracing.com/wmsweb/wms_hoodpins.html You could also order a universal hood latch cable from jc whnitney, etc and draft one of those onto the latch making that the only way to open it. http://www.jcwhitney.com/jcwhitney/textsearch_result.jcw?sku=hood+cable&shopid=100001 Or car alarm
I had a friend in high school that had someone think it was cool to switch all his spark plug wires around. The car caught fire and had a lot of damage! When my friend found out who it was, That person also had a lot of damage!!! He also ended up paying for the repairs!
Thanks everyone. I am looking into a cable operated latch. I will look at the F150. Going to spend some time at Pick a Part on Wednesday to see what I can come up with. When I think of what could have happened to my son I am sick to my stomach.
Sorry you have someone messing with you. I agree you have to meet this head on. Is there video surveillence of parking at the school? They may be able to help ... but it may inflame the situation too. There were many,many things about high school that were great, and other aspects that was a real annoyance like this. I drove a 65 Mustang in HS, and this one kid was so jealous, it lead to a couple confrontations. He always had a couple of idiot buddies around, and I tended to usually be solo at those times. Took care of him though ... After previous issues, one day while putting by him while he was walking to the bus stop, I drove on the other side of the road, giving him plenty of room. He made it a point to reach over and kick my car in the rear quarter. I kept going and got to the intersection. I was going to let this go until at school, but while waiting for traffic to clear, he then came running up like he was going to start something. As luck would have it ... traffic did clear, and I was on a gravel road. He got within range,... burn out, and ROCK SHOWER! ... he ran to the left and that was the wrong choice because the car was drifting that way too, and followed him. Last I could see in my rear view mirror was this punk diving into some bushes for cover. It must have looked like it was straight out of the Dukes of Hazzard. Never had a problem again ....
An alarm wouldn't be a bad idea either, you could use a push switch and mount it under the hood so when its lifted......weeeee rrrr weeeee rrrrr, I got lucky and found a decent alarm at the Pick N Pull in the "yard sale" section for $5.00, new in da box at that!! I am going to install in my car mainly because of the stereo system.
The sad thing is that he waited to drive the car until he was out of High School so nothing happened to it. He drives the car now to College and while working for me in the mornings. The incident happened at 4:30 am behind one of my customers. He will now be parking in front of the stores. I am changing the hood release to an electric unit. Going to scour pick a part on Wednesday and if I don't find anything I'll get a universal unit from So-Cal Phoenix. Also planning on adding an alarm. We were just getting all the necessary mechanical stuff done before we did anything like that, but it is obvious now that this is the first necessity!
Backup cable release. Did the same thing on my 69 Fairlane. It was on the to do list for the Mav, but after the recent incident it is the top priority.
In highschool i just used a chain bolted on the hood latch down to a hole i drillled in the rad support and put a pad lock on it,made it a pian to open the hood but kept stupid people from do'n abything to my car.Had someone try to put sugar in my gas tank they took the cap off and poured it down the filler tube...But my car had a fuel cell lol the filler tube was cut right after it went into the trunk i was getting gas later that day and there was a pile of sugar in my trunk
^^ That't definitely a WTF moment. I had someone climb under my truck in high school and pull one of the plug wires off the plug just enough so it looked like it was still on.
