"Heavy Duty Wheel Lock" (was previously "security of your Trailmanor")

[rickst29]

That Thread http://www.trailmanorowners.com/foru...ead.php?t=4664 is now 4 pages long, with many posts unrelated security ideas such as: removing wheels (even though the thief can bring his own wheels and lug nuts upon his "second" visit); securing the swing-away hitch (helpful, but not really adequate); and various hitch locks (a tiny bit helpful but in reality almost totally inadequate for any but the most casual and unprepared of thieves). Various "wheel lock" products were also discussed, mostly by me. I eventually found one I liked for less than $600-- it costs only $200, including shipping, and also including a few bucks to get 3 spare keys instead of only one spare.

So, I'm making this new one to describe my impressions about the "Heavy Duty Wheel Lock", which has HUGE advantages over the widely used "Trailer Keeper", which I used to own (it cost about $70). The good one can still be defeated in 15-20 minutes by a dedicated, SMART, and properly equipped thief. But I'm glad I bought it, and it's gonna my primary lock from now on. The rest of this post only on these two "wheel lock" technologies, ignoring all of the hitch-related products and their weaknesses, and ignoring the tactics which swing-hitch owners can use to make "hooking up" a bit more time consuming and suspicious-looking.
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In that previous Thread, you'll find pictures of the key weakness in the "Trailer Keeper" system: The bent 1/2" round steel pin, which hooks the "big" orange arm into the lug-nut-mounted wheel "clip" can be easily broken by merely driving the TM forwards at about 1 MPH. (Or backwards, depending on "Trailer Keeper" placement-- whichever direction drives the TrailerKeeper's Orange "wheel lock" into the ground, automatically creates the bending/snapping force needed at the connecting link and its inserted pin.) The relevant post is #18, on the 3rd page.

After the round steel connecting link snaps (which required no tools other than those used to to get the front of the TM frame mounted onto the thief's TV), no tools are necessary to remove the now-disconnected parts and drive the TM away unimpeded. Not a hammer, not a pliers, not even a screwdriver. Just your bare hands (and I mean women's or children's hands, NOT big guy's hands.) After witnessing this shocking and disappointing experience, I consider the "Trailer Keeper" to be grossly under-designed, WAY too easy to break, and darn near a TOTAL WASTE of the $70 or so which I (or you) spent to get it.
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I discussed several alternative "wheel boot" type products in that Thread, some WAY more expensive than the "Heavy duty Wheel Lock"; some comparable in price, and a couple which cost less. As it turned out, the cheap one which I considered (California Immobilizer's "Immobilizer") can't be used with a TM, it can only be used in axles without brakes. The next step upwards in price and quality was this "Heavy Duty Wheel Lock" from equipmentlock.com. It can also be purchased from Rittenhouse, or Northern Tool, and Amazon links to Northern Tool in order to "sell it" to you-- but all these other guys don't have it in stock, they just submit the order and then it's shipped from the OEM factory. Same price, so I chose to deal directly with the mfgr. Here's the link: http://www.equipmentlock.com/hdwl_home.asp
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It arrived a couple of days ago. (From here on, I'll call it the "HDWL" for short.) In pictures, the square tubing portions LOOK about the same as the "strong" part of the "Trailer Keeper", but in real life the square tubing is both thicker AND larger. Although the web site information quotes a mere 50% thicker tubing wall on the HDWL, I think it's twice as thick: It LOOKS twice as thick, and if they have rougly equal thickness of paint then the paint thickness would make the thin one look better, not worse. I'm not sure if someone's Web Page is wrong, I haven't scraped the paint off and my micrometer can't be used to measure an inside diameter on a tubing wall. But if "Trailer Keeper" isn't worse than the TrailerKeeper people claim, then HWDL is even better than EquipmentLock claims it is: it really, REALLY looks twice as thick, not merely 50% better.

So, here's the bottom line: With Trailer Keeper you don't even have to attack the "strong looking" tubing, because there's another part which will break like a toothpick with almost no effort. (Heck, I did by accident, in EXACTLY the way a thief would if he tried to drive away with your TM hooked to his truck, if he hadn't ever noticed that a wheel lock was clamped onto one of the wheels.)

But if you DID stupidly attack it by going after the STRONGEST part of the lock, the tough-looking orange part, it would be about as easy to cut through the entire square tube of steel as it would be to grind off the weld: I estimate either job at 7-10 minutes, with a home-quality rotary tool or strong drill, with spare pieces of cutting tool (rotary attachments or spinning-wheel metal cutting disks on the drill) ready to swap in as they get dull and slow.

In contrast, the HDWL's greatest weakness appears to be the weld. The total length of welding which you must cut is nearly double, due to the larger size of the square tubing. I'll estimate it at about 15 minutes. Because of the much thicker steel, cutting the 2" square tubing is definitely slower than cutting the weld in the HDWL case. (You're slowed down by both the bigger size of square tubing AND the much greater thickness, making it way more than 2x harder to do.) I'll SWAG cutting the steel at 20-30 minutes. (The "SWAG" factor is the absolute time, I'm VERY confident that the breaking the weld is a quicker job. on the HDWL.)

BTW, the "High End" $600 Denver Boot is best attacked in the same way: A smart thief will attack the strong-looking tubing with a cutter tool, and a "pro" can probably get it done in only a bit more than 10 minutes. A pretty competent "hobby" guy with some home shop experience, like me, would take 15-30 minutes. On the Denver Boot, it LOOKS really intimidating, but it's actually the weakest part.

Dumb criminals might try to go after the HDWL lock, or attempt to bend it away from the wheel. Stupid and Hopeless, I think: they'll still be there HOURS later. By placing the HDWL with the lock underneath the inner side of the tire (rather than outside), you give it good protection against freon/sledge hammer attacks: The Freon will work (although not well, this turned out to be a surprisingly GOOD lock), but there's no room to generate the swing speed you need to get a direct hit with power you need at a decent angle into the lock and pin. Without adequate force, you'll need WAY TO MANY noisy hits.

About the only thing I'm not liking about this device is: the square tubing ends with an angled cut, combined with the 2" tubing cross section size is just BARELY small enough to fit into one of the trianglar holes around the TM's 15" wheel. And because it "widens" into a rectangle (with the angled cut) as you push it into the triangle-ish wheel cutout, it doesn't go in very far. It definitely won't fit into one of the holes of the 14" wheel, that will need substantial trimming of the initial "length", not just the widening rectangular "width" into the hole. You need it to mount firmly into one of these wheel cutouts, to prevent a thief from spinning the tire underneath the HDWL and loosening the wheel lug nuts one at a time. (Since he can't get at either the hole or the lug nut underneath the protecting plate, he's SCREWED when he can't turn the wheel lock to a different place on the wheel. And you need that hole and that particular lug nut protected, because the OTHER lug nuts, exposed and wide open to sockets and wrenches, can be taken off in just a few seconds.)

I might do a bit of grinding on the corner ends of my outside HDWL's angled "hook", the part which goes into the outside edge of one of the TM wheel's triangular holes. By making this a tiny bit more narrow, cutting away just a bit of the two corners, I might be able to push the HDWL's hook a bit further into the wheel. But I might not need to do this. I'll look at it again in the next couple of days, and THINK about whether I really need it in any further than it already goes, and if so, exactly what kind of cuts should be made to enhance (rather than weaken) the strength of the connection.
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continued, too long.....