Nashville TJ's Build - Continued

And finally to complete the top of the box, another 1/4" piece of plate cut to fit:

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It fits nice and snug, but is very easy to slide up and down to take it on and off.

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The next piece of fab work on the cover was to add a cross bar to keep the locking lever held down when the cover is in place. That way there is no need to put a pin through the lever to keep it secured.

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(And give me a break on those interior welds - it was really tight in there....:whistle:)
 
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The last piece of fab work on the cover was to add a cross bar to keep the locking lever held down when the cover is in place. That way there is no need to put a pin through the lever to keep it secured.

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(And give me a break on those interior welds - it was really tight in there....:whistle:)

Pretty slick. If those were my welds on the outside, I would have proudly left them un ground (grinded?):) Also nice shop/tool porn.

So, after all this, how do you protect the pin on your hitch?
 
Now that the cover was done - time to secure it to the trailer. After some careful measurement, over to the drill press to poke some holes...

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The u-channel is drilled with 3/4" holes to secure the coupler, so I'm planning on using a 3/4" pin to secure the cover.

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The next piece of fab work on the cover was to add a cross bar to keep the locking lever held down when the cover is in place. That way there is no need to put a pin through the lever to keep it secured.

View attachment 373377

(And give me a break on those interior welds - it was really tight in there....:whistle:)

My interior butt welds on my genright bracket extensions looked like ass. Tight spaces really make it hard to get it to look exactly how you want
 
And now onto building the locking pin. I love these Bolt hitch pin locks. If you have not seen them before the deal is you set them up to use your vehicle key - in this case my truck - but I also have a few to match my other vehicles. I've got half a dozen of these things lying around because I've used them for everything from securing my hitch inserts, to custom built rattle free locks for bike racks, hitch extensions, receiver racks, etc.

These locks come with a standard 5/8" pin, which is both too short and not thick enough for what I need here. I just need to make these two pieces into one:

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Now, the cool way to do this would be to throw the 3/4" bolt in a big metal lathe and mill the profile needed by the Bolt directly into the bolt (ahhhhh, did that makes any sense??? :))

But since I don't have a big metal lathe (and I don't think my woodworking lathe could pull it off :oops:), and the boss denied my request to purchase one for this project, I took the next best route. First, cut the bolt to length:

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Then, cut off the profile from the end of the Bolt pin:

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And then weld 'em up. But, that's easier said than done.
 
For what I have in mind, the challenge is that the pin connector ultimately has to be dead straight, and dead center on the pin. Since the bolt is 3/4" and the pin connector is 5/8", I had to get creative to get them perfectly lined up for welding

To align the components perfectly for welding, I need to insert both into something with the same outside diameter. In my metal pile I quickly found a piece of 3/4" ID 1/4 wall DOM into which I could insert the bolt. But after searching around for a good bit, and going through every piece of tubing and all the sleeves I have, I could not find a piece which was 1/2" ID (into which the PIN lock would fit) and 1 1/4" OD to match the bolt side.

And then it dawned on me - a 1/2" socket has a 1/2" hole. So, I found a socket with an exact 1 1/4" OD - and it worked perfectly.

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Then it was just a matter of clamping both to a piece of angle and boom! Perfectly aligned for welding.

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And that's just what I did:

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And after just a bit of work with a flap disk, I had the proper profile.

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And whadda ya know - it worked. I'm happy with how this came out:

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And here it is in the cover.

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@Woodrow 's question earlier was spot on. There are a few ways to defeat this Bolt locking pin. One way is to get in there with a cut-off wheel and cut the pin, pull the pin out and remove the cover. Another way is to get behind the Bolt lock with a crowbar and lever it right off. These Bolt locks are strong, but I've done it and it doesn't take a lot to pop them off with a crowbar if you can get leverage.

As I said above, I've used this approach with these Bolt locks before, and I've addressed these two issues by adding a sleeve around the Bolt lock itself, as well as the other end of the pin. Like this:


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Now you can still cut the pin, but it also means cutting through this 2" x 1/4" wall DOM tube to get to the pin to cut it - and then you still have to cut through a hardened 3/4" pin. That takes a bunch of time and makes a lot of noise. As I said at the onset of this project, my goal was to at least slow the thieves down - which I think this will do by a lot.

This also keeps a thief from getting a crowbar behind the lock to lever it off - so 2 for 1 in the problem-solving department... :cool:
 
A funny thing about making that collar for the Bolt lock. The Bolt lock is about 1.520" in diameter, and the closest 1/4" wall tube I had in the shop was 1.5" ID - so 20 thou too narrow. Easy, I'll just order a short piece of 2.250" OD 1/4 wall DOM from my usual on-line metal supplier. Easy Peasy.

$90.00/ft.

2 ft minimum.

Ouch.

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Needless to say, out came my die grinder....

:rolleyes:
 
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And here it is, all welded up.

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One thing I thought of once I got it all together at the end, is what would happen if I cut through the Bolt lock itself where the tube does not protect it. I don't know if it will stay locked, or come apart. I may test that. I guess that if it is a problem one solution would be to extend the collar - but that would make it much more difficult to lock and unlock it. I'll have to think on that one.

Let me know what you douchebags think of my work :) (That's a direct reference to another thread out there at the moment).
 
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Let me know what you douchebags think of my work :)D That's a direct reference to another thread out there at the moment).
I'm sure a real thief would have 100 ways to get around that but looks like a great setup to my untrained in the art of thieving self.
 
I'm sure a real thief would have 100 ways to get around that but looks like a great setup to my untrained in the art of thieving self.

Yeah, my thought as well. Good locks generally just keep honest people honest. But, I do this stuff because I enjoy doing it, even if it only slows them down.

One thing I do have planned is to fab up a little insert that will lock into the coupler when it is not hooked up to the truck. I ordered a cheap 2 5/16" ball to do this, but it has not arrived yet.
 
Yeah, my thought as well. Good locks generally just keep honest people honest. But, I do this stuff because I enjoy doing it, even if it only slows them down.

One thing I do have planned is to fab up a little insert that will lock into the coupler when it is not hooked up to the truck. I ordered a cheap 2 5/16" ball to do this, but it has not arrived yet.

Good idea to make your own. I know the one I had on my trailer was the type that one good smack with a hammer would destroy it and render it useless.