The woes of locking your keys in your truck....

[Chrispbrown36]

So the daughter and I headed north to go visit my Mom. The truck handled well on the interstate, first time on the interstate since I bought it. She cruised along at 70 with no shaking or anything....I was pretty happy with that.
Around 4 pm we decided to go grab something to eat. I went over and locked the truck up and as I shut the door I realized I had left the keys in the ignition. No big deal I thought......my uncle is the cop in town and surely they have a slim jim.....I will just give him a call later and have him swing by. We got back about 7 pm and I sent him a text and he tells me they don't carry them anymore. So I call up the motor club and they say they will send someone over....2 hours later. So I wait. The guy gets here and falls all over himself talking about how nice my truck is....I say thank you...now please be careful. He brings out a wire tool of some sort that was way too thick and was NOT designed for manual locks. I asked hi if he had a slim jim and after some digging around he finally finds one. For some reason neither one of us could get the thing to slide down between the trim piece and the glass.....now time for plan c. I go in and get a coat hanger. He messes around....whines about his hands hurting..smokes half a pack of cigarettes. Finally I grab the hanger and I just do it myself......So, for a solid hour this jackwagon messed around and in 5 minutes I pop it open....with a coat hanger I already had. Why did I call the motor club? Well I assumed that they would have some sort of tool that would do it without any paint scratching or anything.....wrong! Between him messing around with the slim jim and the coat hanger being jerked around the paint on the inside of the door and the door jam took a bit of a beating but nothing too awful bad.....that door needed some work anyway and somewhere down the road a paint job will be needed for the truck. Lesson learned and spare key (which was resting safely in the ashtray) is now tucked safely in my billfold. On the plus side....that truck isn't simple to break into!

[Liberty]

Geeze, on mine I can just slide the back windows open since the glue has long since rotted away. Alternatly I've heard success just popping the latch with a small flathead screwdriver.

Good to hear yours is somewhat harder to get into!

[SkinnyG]

In previous cars, I've hidden a slim jim somewhere on the vehicle (frame, behind bumper, wherever) so I can get in.

First thing I do with every vehicle I buy - figure out how to break into it.

Glad you got in!

[Titomars]

I personally always keep a spare key in my wallet. I also re-keyed my 77 to just one key for everything, ignition, doors, console, and glove box.

[Chrispbrown36]

I love trucks with sliding back glass...fortunately and unfortunately they make it easy to get into them. This truck does not have sliding back glass. The slim jim should have worked, but for some reason we were unable to get it down in there....I still can't figure out why. I typically carry a spare key in my wallet too, but when I changed to lock cylinders a few weeks back I wasn't thinking and put it in the ashtray. It now resides in my wallet. I will also be having a couple more made....just in case. ha ha

[Liberty]

I have a well hidden magnet key box somewhere under the truck for my spares.

[dfrank]

The rivet in the bottom of my passenger side vent window rotted away and snapped off awhile ago. I was shooting clays at the shotgun range one day and realized I had locked myself out when we where leaving. I was able to just push the bottom of the window in and reach in with the clay pigeon thrower and unlock it. This reminds me now that I need to find a new way to break into my truck now that the vent window is fixed. Lol

[tucsonjwt]

Hide - A - Key on all of my vehicles - located somewhere inside the C of the frame rails (don't tell anybody.) My problem - start the truck, pop the hood, check to see what is wrong, close the door, remote keyless automatically locks the doors when the ignition is on - locked out.

[K.C.'s85]

UH---usually on any older chevy with wing vents just put a butter knife or other similar object in and open the wing even if it has a lock just push up on the wing latch then reach in and unlock the door easy. Not that I have ever done this before.

[Chrispbrown36]

He jacked around with the wing vents a little and I wished he hadn't.....I had just got the darn things not to whistle at me while I drove down the road! ha ha Honestly this is the first truck that I have owned that did not have a sliding back glass. I thought I would hate it but for security reasons and looks it has grown on me....of course in situations like yesterday I wish it was.

[WIDESIDE72]

Just snooping g around her. Usually on the 67-72 side. Just an fyi on 67-72...you can't lock your keys in truck. Push down lock knob, shut door, knob pops up. You have to close door and lock with a key..

[Chrispbrown36]

I knew there was a reason I should have held out for a 72! ha ha

[Titomars]

Originally Posted by WIDESIDE72

Just snooping g around her. Usually on the 67-72 side. Just an fyi on 67-72...you can't lock your keys in truck. Push down lock knob, shut door, knob pops up. You have to close door and lock with a key..

You have to hold the door handle button in as you close the door with the lock knob down. At least that's how it worked with other GM vehicles from that time.

[77c10]

Originally Posted by Liberty

I have a well hidden magnet key box somewhere under the truck for my spares.

I do this on every vehicle I own....

[Super_Dave]

... funny, today I was trying to adjust my hood release tension and hood to fender gap after transplanting my 350. After slamming the hood a few times to get the hood pecker in the support hole, then adjusting the pecker length, I felt something moving inside the hood latch mechanism.

I worked it over to a hole and pulled it out and low and behold, a PO somewhere had hidden his magnetic key box up behind the hood pecker mount! I now have another set of brand new unused keys! Amazing it stayed up there all this time with all the banging the hood was getting over the past few months...

Guess the wife will be wanting these, so I need to keep quiet.

[Chrispbrown36]

Nice find Super Dave. I have always kept a spare in my wallet....I go NOWHERE without my wallet. Like my Grandpa used to say....I feel naked without my wallet and my pocket knife.

[motornut]

locked mine in the 88 had to smash the small window in the rear door.But some older (non- locking) front door vents you do with a coat hanger.

[greg64]

Years ago, I used to wire a spare key up in the chassis somewhere, but I don't anymore. I realized, that with my truck, I can't store anything valuable in it, because there's no where to really hide anything out of sight. When I lived in Vancouver, a crack-head would break into your vehicle to steal $2 in coins. And why bother with slimjim's? We'll just bust the window instead.

So, I just don't bother locking the doors at all anymore. I'd rather they open the door, realize there's nothing to steal, and move on. Far better then a busted window to repair.

[jdf915]

We used to have a ford that was just to get us by but the people before us replaced the ignition so the key was changed also so when we bought the truck we only had one ignition key so to remedy the door issue we would leave the wing windows unlocked but looking back now it would have been better to leave the doors unlocked.
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[72MARIO]

Originally Posted by Titomars

You have to hold the door handle button in as you close the door with the lock knob down. At least that's how it worked with other GM vehicles from that time.

Not on 67-72 trucks. Chevelle sure. But on the 67-72 it is impossible to lock you keys in the truck.

[gmachinz]

I locked my keys in my 91 Suburban 3 times before! Yeah I know....shoulda hid an extra key somewhere....well, I didn't think I'd do it again....then after that I didn't think I'd do it a 3rd time....lol

But on the plus side, each time I got faster getting into it! I got to where within 2 minutes I could pull the rubber rope seal out of the big side glass panel and the window would literally slide right in! Use a little dish soap to re-install the seal after setting the window and rubber weatherstrip back in and done!