As a theft deterrent, you have to admit that electrifying the body would be a pretty good one. If you can't touch it for more than a second at a time, you can't very well jimmy the locks or steal anything off of it...make it painful enough, even if they do smash the window, they have to grab the door handle still.

Also, is this possible? Through an ignition coil wired to the body? Could you make it where it'd only electrify the body panels, or where it wouldn't hurt other wiring for the engine or radio and stuff inside? This is pretty much only a theory in my mind right now, unfortunately.

The switch would basically be hidden under the bed or etc. so you could flip it on and off, to able and disable the system...not getting shocked yourself.

Any ideas to help make this work? Void the usual "sounds like a dangerous idea" comments, 'cause I already know that.

Well one problem may occur in the power needed. If its on all the time while ur away, ull need a lot of amp hours. Unless u had a shock sensor runnin with the panels to turn the power on when needed......ITs a possibility i say, but it does sound kinda riske

Brad

My dad told me in the late fifties they used to run a wire from the coil to the body of their cars and pull up bumper to bumper at the local drive-in. When the unsuspecting guy came back to his car he would grab the door handle and get one hell of a jolt. Yea it's very possible.

We used to do that, the problem was you don't always make a circiut so it fails more times that it works. You need wet ground and wet feet or bare feet. When it does work it makes them dance a bit oddly for a few seconds.

do you think the gas fumes in the tank might explode???

I think power is still the issue. Like mentioned above, unless you had some sort of motion or touch sensor to turn it on, you would constantly be using ALOT of juice. I guess you could line the roof , bed and hood with solar panels to help build things back up. :hm:

Hmm, good point. Maybe there'd be a way to keep the power circulating, and the power would only be drained when something was grounding it (when someone touches the truck). Doubt that'd work...perhaps choke down the power as to not use so much?

there is some seriouse legal issues with this too. Neighbors dog takes a leak on your front wheel, and gets killed through the current going up his urine stream... kids playing around and bump it and get shocked... etc. It's hard enough to get a home owners insurance company to OK an electric fence with warnings posted every 10 feet. Your truck will become a liability if you do this.

That's crossed my mind too. The legality aspect of it doesn't really bother me...if I could get a working theory of this thing put into decent function it'd be a marvel.

I know in my younger days we used to use a model T spark coil for that purpose. But like Andy said with liability issues nowadays not a good idea.
If your dead set on it though you might look at electric fence setups they will definitely get your attention.

How did you hook up the coil? What was the end effect?

I don't remember the specfic hookup but high voltage was hooked to body.
What was the effect grab a HEI sparkplug wire and tell me.

I don't remember the specfic hookup but high voltage was hooked to body.
What was the effect grab a HEI sparkplug wire and tell me.

OUCH that hurts, I have been down that road:(

This doesn't really answer any questions but my brother used to really get peoples attention in his 72. We stuffed a 12 gauge wire under the HEI boot on one of his plug wires where the plug wire and the small 12 ga would both get power. Then we ran the small wire up under his passenger seat, up through the foam, and pulled 1 strand of the copper through the seat cushion. When people would sit down, it would shock the crap out of them, but the one strand of wire on a red seat was hard for people to find. We had to put a 110V household light switch under his seat to turn it off. A regular automotive toggle wouldn't turn it off because the spark would jump across the terminals and continue to shock. Ahh...good times! Then there was the time that we used a Jeep coil, a spark plug, and acetylene / oxygen for a potato launcher...never mind, I don’t want to give y'all any more bright ideas. :lol:

Nice, I like it. Doubt I'd do that though...just looking for a good honest theft deterrent. I appreciate the input...if y'all have any more stories of anything relating to this kind of thing (because it's fun to read either way), post up.

When it warms up, I might try hooking up smaller amounts of electricity to the body like a solar powered electric fence charger...something you can get a gentle poke out of, see how it'll effect the vehicle and what parts give more of a shock (door handles, painted body panels, etc.)

Come to think of it, if a vehicle can handle a lightning strike and not fry, this should technically be fine...'cause the stuff inside the cab is grounded by the rubber tires. Theoretically, only someone making contact with the ground completing the connection should get the electricity circulated through them.

Yesss...