terk stolen!

[dstan]

Well, my 1983 tercel 4wd was stolen. It was parked on 54th street near shattuck in Oakland, CA. It was the salmon / copper color. Damage to left front quarter panel.

Who would steal a terk!? That is just not cool. Take a corolla sedan or a tercel sedan, or something. No? And this after having replaced the cv shafts, struts, shocks, countless hoses, fluids, pcv, voltage regulator, stereo, speakers, shift lever seat + etc, tires, battery, interior bulbs, front seat, clutch cable, air filter, fuel filter, plugs, wires, cap, rotor, vacuum advance, roof rack, and who knows what else since I got the thing a mere 5 months ago.

Boo.

Before I go, I would like to express my appreciation for the forum and in particular for all of its members, who made it possible for me to learn to do as much as I was able to with that car. At least I'll be a more skillful appraiser when next I am in a position to buy another car, though that will not be for quite some time.

[dlb]

keep your head up, it's fairly common for cars to turn up unscathed after a simple night of joyriding. they obviously weren't stealing it for monetary value or to strip it and sell the parts so unless the people who stole it know how rad at off-roading these cars are, i can't imagine them doing much damage to it.

best of luck!

[Tercel__jon]

But hes in oakland...im pretty sure itll turn up unless some idiot tries to scrap it for money. I really hope you get it back. Id try calling all the impound lots and all the scrap yards in the area, and some beyond in at least a two hundred mile radius. Start with all the police stations, giving the description of the car and the Vin# in case they might have seen it. The peach/salmon color is hard to miss, mines the same color, everybody in the county knows my car.

[tercel4wdrules]

This really sucks for you, especially since you put so much effort into it. Another member on this forum also had a T4WD stolen in Oakland a few years ago. At least it has a color that stands out, there aren't too many copper Tercel wagons around here too. Good luck to you and let us know if you get it back (hopefully).

[Petros]

Over 90 percent of stolen cars are recovered. check to make sure it was not towed because some thought it parked too long, or abandon, or parked illegally. It seems really stupid to steel an old car that will put you in jail just as much as a new Lexus. Even if joy riding, why not joy ride in a newer car?

Anyway, keep looking for it, it will likely show up sooner or later. I doubt a profitable market for black market Tercel parts has suddenly appeared, I suspect the more likely reason was a neigbor complained the car had been parked there for weeks, or was in "his" spot, and had the city tow it.

Good luck.

[dstan]

Hey everybody. Thanks for the thoughts.

I, too, thought it had to be a joy ride thing. But my level of optimism has declined a bit, since it's now been over a week. Though I have no clue how long these things are usually missing for. I guess I have to wait for it to accumulate parking tickets and get towed. Maybe I should periodically check with Oakland to see if there's any action.

Anywho, according to the person who dispatched the officer to take the report it was not towed by city of Oakland. And it had only been parked in that spot for an afternoon / evening. I parked it across the street from my friend's house in the afternoon and it was gone the next morning.

Calling all of the impound lots / junkyards /etc in a 200mi radius around Oakland seems like a daunting task.

I keep thinking that I should have rigged a secret kill switch so that they would have to do a bunch of troubleshooting to get the thing going. Anybody ever thought about doing this?

That, or the club.

Daniel

[deejay1272]

I keep thinking that I should have rigged a secret kill switch so that they would have to do a bunch of troubleshooting to get the thing going. Anybody ever thought about doing this?

I spoke with another member about this. He rigged up a simple fuse in the clutch pedal circuit to prevent the car from starting if the circuit was left open. Clever. I'd love to install this sort of thing on my T4WD, but for whatever reason, the engine turns over whether I engage the clutch or not so I probably have to hunt this down and investigate first.

For those of you who don't have this problem, it's a simple wire splice with any female fuse socket in it. When the fuse is in place, the car starts. When it's not, then it won't. Easy.

DStan -- so sorry to hear about the theft of your Tercel. Hope you stop by every so often in the future to say hello...

[dlb]

I keep thinking that I should have rigged a secret kill switch so that they would have to do a bunch of troubleshooting to get the thing going. Anybody ever thought about doing this?

funny you should mention. board member barto did this. behind the clutch pedal is a plastic button. when you step on the clutch, it presses the button in and closes the circuit, allowing you to start the car. bart just removed the button and wiring, drilled a hole in the lower dash panel near the hood release latch, and mounted the button there. he said he didn't even need to cut or splice any wires and it only took him a few minutes. this way, to start the car you must press the button with your hand and either have the shifter in neutral or the clutch pedal pressed in--i don't think many thieves would put the button together with starting the car.

an added bonus of bart's mod is that you can press the button, have the shifter in first gear, leave the clutch pedal up, and blip the ignition to pull the car forward on the power of the starter. this is useful in emergency situations, like running out of gas in the middle of an intersection. lots of 4x4 trucks have this feature stock, i think it's called a clutch cancel switch.

[jed]

I feel your pain after having my first terc stolen. I was in the motion of moving from CO to Memphis, so almost all my earthly belongings where inside the car. It took some time for me to find an older terc that is still teaching me curse words on maintenance and joys of driving with the windows down. To this day "Betysy" -88 that was my grandmothers car that we drove from Santa Fe to Steamboat all on dirt roads, was my best car. Turk the Turtle (84) is the second best. Good luck in recovering it.

[dstan]

hey everybody. the terk has been recovered!

window was not broken, ignition intact. strange...

gone are the cd receiver (obvs), full-size spare (weird?), and tools i had in there when it was taken (obvs). also taken was the registration card and insurance card... weird, huh? why would they do that? well, they took everything in the glove box, so maybe they just threw it all in a bag to sort out later and see if there was anything of value.

other interesting tid bits: it was left in front of a fire station, parked on a red curb, across from construction work. so either they left it there to be found quickly (doubtful) or they just stopped there, coincidentally, for a minute, and the thing would not start. see, the terk had been having this issue where it would always start right up when cold, but when hot, no such luck, except on lucky occasion. it would have to be push started. and almost always that would do the trick. prior to the appearance of this startup issue it had been doing a weird rpm cycling thing that i was only just beginning to troubleshoot. but so yeah, maybe the thing stranded them/him/her?

anywho, so yesterday when i went to retrieve it the car appeared to need a jump (surprisingly, the culprits did leave me the jack and jumper cables!). and though i feared that there might have been a messy wiring problem to solve from them hotwiring it or whatever, the thing started. now it seems though that the problem with starting when hot has gotten worse, cus it stalled a bunch of times when hot yesterday, too. i seem to remember reading something about the possibility of an rpm cycling issue being related to a fuel pump problem. maybe that's where i'll start.

oh, another weird thing... even though they stole the the receiver, the paneling was put back in place. i'm gonna pull that off today, along with the under-the-steering-column panel, too, to see what if any messing with the wires they did to get the thing going.


anyway, that's all for now.

[deejay1272]

Happy to hear that you got your baby back. Time to install an ignition cut switch somewhere! I think I'll take this as a reminder to myself to put this on my to-do list...

[Tercel__jon]

Glad you got it back!

Remember, some older toyota keys that are worn can start other toyotas. Actually happens to many other brands as well. My mom was working at TLE in walmart back in the day and started an 87 bronco with a 84 broncos key. My 85 cressidas key will start my 83 terc. So yeah, thats more than likely how they did it.

[dlb]

i agree with TJ because it seems weird that they would put the trim back on underneath the steering column. then again, if they put the trim back around the stereo afterwards...who knows. it's weird though, fo sho.

[dstan]

yeah. i've been thinking about getting the club. but god i would rather not have to do that. maybe i could just replace the locks / ignition. when stolen the car was parked at a place where i frequently leave the car, so if it happens to be a stomping ground of the thief then it would seem that there'd be little to prevent a repeat of the affair. which would seriously suck.

[dstan]

anybody ever replaced the lock cylinders? O'Reilly Auto shows ignition cylinder / key set, but not one that includes the cylinders for the doors / hatch...