A friend of mine had had his truck stolen recently while on a business trip to Dallas. He parked his truck in the parking area of the motel where he was staying. When he came out the next morning, his truck was gone. Obviously stolen. Here’s what the police told him probably happened.
One of the thieves stays close to the vehicle to be stolen with an electronic device that connects to the electronic ignition system. The other thief –armed with a different electronic gizmo– walks up and down the hallways of the hotel, sending out a signal that connects to the electronic key fob of the truck. A signal is then sent to the device in the parking lot, unlocking the truck and starting the ignition. It’s called a “relay attack” and here’s some video of a car being stolen from the owner’s driveway.
The key was probably on a table near the front door so the thief didn’t have to get any closer than the front porch.
My friend asked the investigating officer what could be done to prevent this kind of theft and was told his best bet was a Faraday pouch. Amazon has hundreds of them.
“The International Harvester Travelall is a model line of vehicles that were manufactured by International Harvester; four generations were produced from 1953 to 1975. Derived from the International light truck line, the Travelall was a truck-based station wagon. One of the first competitors to the Chevrolet Suburban, the Travelall was a forerunner of modern people carriers and full-size sport utility vehicles. As International withdrew from light-truck sales, the Travelall and pickup truck lines were discontinued after the 1975 model year, followed by the Scout in 1980.” (
Looks like they might keep an old guy from tumbling out of the Jeep and I’ll settle for that. And in the event I’m surprised by a German patrol, I do NOT want to fuck with a stuck seat belt latch.
There’s a real rat’s nest of wires behind the dash and I might –or might not– try to tidy up.
In the photo below you see holes where I removed switches for the windshield wiper (I’m going manual, baby!); the rollbar lights; and a cigarette lighter. I’ll plug the holes with some nice rubber grommets. I traced a wire from the master toggle back to the brake lights but can’t seem to make those work.
I pulled the access cover to get at the brake fluid cylinder. Didn’t have the nerve to go further. Hard to believe folks kept a close eye on brake fluid levels.
While crawling around under the Jeep I noticed oil dripping from one corner of the oil pan (?). Paul thinks this might be a matter of retorquing the bolts which might have loosened up over time, or the gasket could have shrunk a small amount.