Protecting the cats

mrbieler

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Sep 15, 2004
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Sorry to hear they got you. I caught them in the act at 2am trying to get mine so I only had to deal with getting the cuts welded up. PITA.
 
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p m

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Well... Just got my D1 back from the muffler shop.
All in all - $300 for towing, ~$1200 for CARB-approved cat (1!) and labor, out of which $1k was paid by the insurance.
Of course, CARB f'd things up by having a digit "8" instead of a letter "B" of engine code, which resulted in the shop trying to find a compliant cat for two weeks.
 

discostew

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Sep 14, 2010
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Sorry to hear they got you. I caught them in the act at 2am trying to get mine so I only had to deal with getting the cuts welded up. PITA.
I worked in downtown Chicago the last time scrap prices made our converters valuable. I worked with this scary dude who used to run with the gangster desciples. He cought someone cutting the cats out of his truck. It really didn't end well for the guy. I'm not sure how you steal converters from a wheel chair, but I'm sure he'll figure out a way.
 
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Flyfish

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Oct 29, 2004
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Well... Just got my D1 back from the muffler shop.
That sux. Glad you’re back on the road! Recently happened to a guy I know on his D1. But they didn’t bother to cut the O2 wires. They pulled them out of the harness. Insult to injury.
 
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crown14

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May 11, 2006
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Clayton, NC
Jimmy is right. Best thing to do is get ahead of the problem, sell your high-value original cats while they are still worthwhile. If the thieves aren't coming for them, years and years of use will eventually render them worthless so make hay while the sun shines as they say. The trading price of the metals from the substrate isn't going away anytime soon.
CA guys your best bet is to figure a workaround if you catch my meaning.

49 staters have more options. With a D2 for example the magnaflow aftermarket replacement Y pipe is cheap enough that you can sell your old converters, buy it, install it, and end up with fresh new ones and cash in your pocket. Late 90s Rovers- youre in the best financial position but it will take a little more work as I think a set of "universal" converters welded on is the best bet.

if you really do not care, or maybe if your LR is soon to be exempt from emissions testing (or already is) well there are still solutions


and for the record, a cat thief learns to visually spot the difference between a $45 aftermarket converter and an OEM $450 unit his first day when he goes to sell his previous night's work.
 
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p m

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CA guys your best bet is to figure a workaround if you catch my meaning.
yeah.
But you're definitely onto something. Dudes with good factory Y-pipes, take them off, and sell to us in California! You'll get a stainless-steel Magnaflow wonder for what you make on them.
 

discostew

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Sep 14, 2010
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Northern Illinois
Them GDs ain’t no joke.
no they are not. That guy was telling me the story about why he was locked up for a while. He said they broke into a drug dealers house to rob hiim and the cops showed up. He said he was hiding behind a door in a bedroom and when one of the cops came in there he punched them in the head and knocked them out. He said he was not aware it was a female cop till he saw her laying on the floor. The rest of the cops tazed him and beat the ever living shit out of him.
 

DiscoHasBeen

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Aug 7, 2016
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>On the second day of the operation, police paid surprise visits to five of the “core buyer” businesses and asked to see the records of sale regarding catalytic converters. Current Indiana law gives police access to such records without a warrant.<

>A new Indiana law, which took effect July 1 of this year, states a business can only purchase a catalytic converter that’s not still attached to a vehicle if the person trying to sell it has proof of ownership of the vehicle the part came from. Such documentation can include a vehicle title or registration, a receipt from a transaction of repair for the vehicle, or an affidavit by a law enforcement officer attesting to the officer’s reasonable belief that the catalytic converter lawfully came into the possession of the person attempting to sell the catalytic converter.

The new law also increases violations to a level 6 felony, instead of a class A misdemeanor.<


Not sure how much this shit will help but at least they are trying to do something.

So are some cats off of different vehicles (LR) worth more. Or is it the fact the vehicle sits higher off the ground making it more convenient?
 

DiscoHasBeen

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So being bored at work this morning I looked it up. The Toyota Prius has the highest rate of stolen catalytic converters. It being a low emission vehicle their converters have more of "that stuff" in them. SUVs and trucks are targeted only because of the ease in getting to the catalytic converter, which makes sense.

Edit to include this. Pretty fugazi if you ask me. It's riveted to the bottom of the vehicle. IDK about anyone else but that seems like a bad idea to me.
 
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donniefitz2

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Sep 15, 2020
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All of the ideas to protect the cats so far involve welding things underneath the vehicle. I don't think this would ultimately be a great solution.

I had a rather devious thought today about a different solution. Instead of adding something to the truck, how about putting a bed of nails (BoN) under the truck? You park over this BoN, centering the vehicle over it on your driveway at night.

The BoN is theoretical at the moment, but let's just assume it works and it's camouflage enough to be difficult to see. It's comprised of a mat with hundreds of small nails about 3/8 long. The nails are of course pointed up. Now, because you would only really use this at night, the BoN is not readily visible in the dark and furthermore, because the truck casts a shadow over it, the darkness is increased.

An unsuspecting thief wants to hack these cats off in the cover of darkness so he's unlikely to shine a light under the vehicle until he's got eyes on the prize. So, he thrusts himself under the vehicle, rolling onto the ground with all of his body weight only to find the flesh of his back and side pierced by hundreds of nails. He will scream in agony, wonder WTF just happened and likely run off. Cats in tact.

I know there are all sorts of practical problems with this solution and again, it's theoretical. But, if one could make a BoN that blends into the ground, it could work. This has the added benefit of causing the thief some pain which is a kind of justice too.

You could also just have a permanent BoN build into the driveway that's plainly visible but very difficult to remove. You just park over it and the thief can see it, but can't do anything to remove it. Then, your cats would just taunt the thief.
 

discostew

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Sep 14, 2010
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When we all had to have piles of change in our car to throw in toll baskets, my friend kept getting his change stolen out of his car. So he went and got some double sided razor blades and mixed them in with all the quarters. Lots of blood one time and no more change getting stolen. Thats the kind of solution your talking about donnie. I think a good dog mauling would fix them for a while anyway.
 
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donniefitz2

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Sep 15, 2020
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When we all had to have piles of change in our car to throw in toll baskets, my friend kept getting his change stolen out of his car. So he went and got some double sided razor blades and mixed them in with all the quarters. Lots of blood one time and no more change getting stolen. Thats the kind of solution your talking about donnie. I think a good dog mauling would fix them for a while anyway.
Oh, now that is truly devious. I like his style.
 

p m

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Guys, you just have to be very aware that all you wish upon somebody has a high chance to impact you or your family. The bag of nails under my truck is guaranteed to produce a nail in one of my tires or one of my friends' or neighbors. Razor blades in the coin tray make me cringe.
I take those as more of "pox on you" responses.

What can you do?

One is to make the process of extracting a cat far more onerous; the street value of RRC/D1/D2 cats is not that high, but accessibility is excellent.
I don't have a good way to post a drawing, but the idea is to get a piece of flat stock - 12GA mild steel or aluminum - and make yourself cat skids.
They won't really be like proper skids, but they'll serve you with a warning if you drag the bottom too close to a rock.

20211106_161621A.jpg


Starting with a 12"x11" plate, you'll end up with a 5"-wide channel with one leg of 3.5" and another - 2.5' tall.

20211106_165620A.jpg


The lower side will go inboard to go around cats, higher side gets bolted to the two bottom holes of the frame crossmember.

20211030_161931A.jpg


The photo above I took while still messing around with the shape - ultimately, they end up bolted using 3/8"-16", 1.25" long, Torx button-head screws, with fender washers and nylock nuts behind the channel.
I have to tell you that sneaking a 9/16" wrench to grab the nuts and keep it while undoing the bolt is a bitch. Cutting this thing off with a reciprocating saw will be super loud, like neighborhood-outside-tile-cutting-job loud, and it will take a while.
In the line of all things biting you in the ass - it'll bite you in the ass all right when you need to get there.

Now, the D1/RRC environment allows you to extend the bent part all the way to the sway bar brackets. You'll need a 24" stretch to do it; I decided against it to keep the cats and things around them cooler.

As you can see, the Y-pipe behind the cats still can be chopped off, so you'll need to make sure the cat is a bitch to remove even if cut off. You have to fashion something in front of the cat - the sway bar brackets and bottom of the framerail offers a great way to make extraction from the front difficult.

Not the greatest solution (it took a lot of embarrassing crunches of the driveshaft against this steel plate, but now it's clear):


20211030_161840A.jpg


All Y-pipes and all Land Rovers are made differently, so you'll have to improvise a little.
You can also use a couple of stainless steel hose clamps around the ports of the cats that are difficult to get to, and leash the cat(s) to either the framerail or the shield you made.

That's about it for mechanical stuff. Now you can get devious with alarms.
This part is pure speculation since I have not moved past buying the parts, but the idea is simple.
A cheap IR motion sensor (board level, https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07GJDJV63 , $6.99 for two) and an N-channel MOSFET (IRF520 with driver board -https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07GLNCRR4 , $7.99 for six) should allow you to make something like that:
PIR_alarm.jpg


You need to assemble this little circuit and put it in a small plastic case; mount the case at the bottom of the front bumper aiming the sensor back. The "DOOR LIGHT SWITCH" output of the circuit should be wired into one or another A-pillar's "door open" switches, the rest is self-explanatory.
The idea of it is simple: when a warm body ends up under the vehicle (and cats are already cold), the sensor detects it and triggers the MOSFET to short the door switch to the ground, and the factory alarm will consider it an unauthorized break-in to the vehicle (launching the horns and whatnot).

Finally, there's an even more-untested idea - buy a cheap knock sensor (https://www.amazon.com/ACDelco-12636736-Original-Equipment-Detonation/dp/B00S0GIUJY/ ), mount it on a cool section of the exhaust system, and feed the signal to a cheap 50-100W board-level amp (e.g., https://www.parts-express.com/TDA7492-Digital-Audio-Amplifier-Board-2x50W-320-606 ) hooked up to PA speakers mounted underhood or somewhere else outside the cab. Basically, to announce the act of using a reciprocating saw to the entire neighborhood.

That's about all I could come up with.
 

DiscoHasBeen

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Aug 7, 2016
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Indy
A bed of nails is going to get you a destroyed Disco. Think about it.

pm
Correct me if I am wrong, but given the fact that someone has shown up to cut off your cats aren't all you doing is making him work a little harder? For that to really work wouldn't it have to be hardened? Plus, I'd just come back tomorrow night with the appropriate wrenches. I now understand the other device and the rivets (although I still think that is a bad idea).
 

p m

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Correct me if I am wrong, but given the fact that someone has shown up to cut off your cats aren't all you doing is making him work a little harder?
yes, that's the idea.
It is near damn impossible to safeguard the cats - as it is the wheels, tires, and the whole truck. But, considering the only advantage of stealing cats from old rovers being the ease of access, that's the advantage I want to take away. A little, at least. I want also to make the process louder - I once woke up to the sound of reciprocating saw at night, and I noticed the dogs in the neighborhood started going off.

Tools... What's preventing me from filling the head of Torx screws with epoxy? Only the thought of that biting me in the ass. I can (and do, occasionally) make fasteners different. Imaging fishing in the dark with a long 9/16" open-end wrench forever, just to find that another nut is different.

I looked at photos of cats with welded-in pieces of rebar that Bill Gill posted a few months ago - I really don't see these a good deterrent, the only difference is that more expensive blade is needed to chop them out.

By the way, LR3/4 seems to be well-positioned for a good protection. A 30"x19" plate can cover the access to the rears of the cats, and serve as a nice bash plate as well. It probably needs to have a few large holes poked in it, for the heat to escape.
 

DiscoHasBeen

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Aug 7, 2016
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Indy
IDK if there is a market for it but an alarm system based on sound would seem to solve the problem. Once the db raised above a certain threshold an alarm would sound. Hard to saw a cat off without making a little noise.
 
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MM3846

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Feb 18, 2014
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LI, NY
By the way, LR3/4 seems to be well-positioned for a good protection. A 30"x19" plate can cover the access to the rears of the cats, and serve as a nice bash plate as well. It probably needs to have a few large holes poked in it, for the heat to escape.

easiest thing to do on the air suspended trucks is just drop it to access mode and leave it. can't get to the cats if you can't get under it. or are these guys coming with jacks, too?