Stolen TT - a word of advise

happybooker1 wrote:
When I had my Pup, my brother took some square tube and measured the wheel hubs and made me a lock for the wheel. It was like an "L" shape but with a shorter tab on the bottom foot. The shorter part with the tab fit around one of the "spokes" of my tire from the back. The longer part of the "L" came through the "spoke" area to the front (barely) where he had welded on a bar lock he found at Granger.

The only way thieves could have removed it was with a cutting torch. I let it go when I sold the Pup since it probably wouldn't have fit another trailer.

I have HEARD that just putting a locking ball in the coupler and/or chaining it up won't work because thieves will just wrap a chain around the tongue and tow it a couple of blocks. Then they bring a welding torch, cut off the old tongue/coupler/chains, weld on their OWN coupler, hook on & drive off.

You can buy this at Amazon, which seems to be very close to what you have. As per the Amazon review, toss the disk lock that comes with it, and buy this padlock for it.

I would say it will take some work with an angle grinder to get it removed. The average drilling jig to get a disk lock off won't work with this padlock since it uses a completely different cylinder than 99% of the locks out there.

So far, the best security I've seen next to the "locking winter wheels" I mentioned is what a friend of mine does where he has a permanent spot for his trailer. He has two cement anchors sunk underneath, and after he backs his trailer up, he chains the trailer's frame to the anchors underneath. A thief would then have to take an angle grinder underneath the trailer to a very thick, high test, security chain in order for the trailer to disappear.

Another trick I do is pretty low-tech. Once the trailer is in place, I pull the license plate, put it in a plastic folder, and stick it in my truck. It isn't much, but if there are any observant peace officers, a trailer with no license plate will be obvious.

Here in Texas, trailers disappear all the time to wind up as hunting lodges, or labs. The average trailer lock that you see will be cracked off in no time... or just ignored when the thieves use some chains to haul the trailer off to a private spot where they can haul out their angle grinders. The trick is to immobilize the wheels so any attacks they do have to be done on the spot.