Hi all, I'm hoping some of you can help me here. I am in charge of 43 machines mostly Cat but some others too. We would like to change all the ignitions to our own key, all the same. This will help with theft and other contractors using and breaking our stuff when we aren't there. Any suggestions on how to go about this? We don't want to do batteries disconnects because our operators won't bother to use them, already tried. I just don't know where to start with this conversion, or if it's possible. Thanks for all your help.
I think your best bet is to get a Cole Hersee catalog and look in it. More than likely they make Cat switches for them so a replacement should be wire for wire. You will probably have to special order 50 or so keyed alike for a few spares, it may get $pendy!
Have you asked any locksmiths? If they could re key or replace the cylinders that might be the cheapest option. I have no idea if they could make different brands work with the same key. The other option is the door locks on cabs.
43 machines? I'd hate to have to modify all the mountings on those machines to accept some form of alternate switch, not to mention sorting out and connecting the wire terminations to the key switch of all those various machines as many OEM switches have molded receptacles that pop on the terminals of the switch, you'd have to figure out which wire does what then nip them off to adapt to some form of either ring or spade terminal. I think I'd rather look at either a keyed alike battery disconnect or a keyed alike switch that disables the main ignition wire from the OEM key switch in the cab.
Cost vs benefit. Good ideas are free/worthless. Implementation of free/worthless ideas costs real money. Will any real/actual thefts be prevented by an expensive idea? Have there been any actual theft losses? Is this just a **** or a wiz by a new guy? Edit: p1ss gets blocked???
Put a hinged heavy metal cover over all the key switches with a keyed alike padlock, fire the first couple guys that don't bother to lock them up, problem solved. It's an ugly solution to an ugly problem. A lot of the old open cab machines had sheet metal covers for the gauges and switches with a padlock loop, with the advent of cabs they leave everything exposed apparently so the asshats can break all the cab glass to gain access.
What willie59 and lantraxco said! Guess I went to bed too early to beat willie to the punch and got up too late to beat lantraxco. Sucks to be an old retired person:falldownlaugh
What Lan said. Bonus is that five years down the road when the wrong people get keys its easy to switch locks. The company I worked for had 6 different dedicated keyway master locks for the different divisions. On many machines it was as simple as a padlock on the door.
A bonus of this system is that if you have a problem and need to make a change or whatever, a pair of husky bolt cutters or a cutoff wheel on a grinder will solve the problem in less than a minute and no damage to anything but the offending padlock. It's all about making it too much work for the thieves/vandals, they'll move on to easier pickings usually.
True, I'd say that most thieves/vandals are on the lazy side so anything that involves a bit of work they will pass by.
We have a fairly cheap key pad immobiliser here in the UK that may be an option for you http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/1610...ICEP3.0.0-L&ff14=122&viphx=1&ops=true&ff13=80