Prior to my V2 (which I picked up this weekend!), I had a tonneau cover on the bed. I wired the tailgate lock to the other locks so that it unlocked remotely and then just pulled the cable to release the tonneau cover. I think something like that could work for the back panel, not sure about the sides.
I live in Los Angeles (where people steal stuff out of trucks all the time). I would love to figure out a way to replace those 6 locks…
And with a good amount of fiddling around, made it work.
From a customer frustration perspective, I touch the panels and locks of my V2 at least 5-8 times per day. Unless I am on a trip I doubt I interact with all other parts of my V2 that many times per week (or month!). Its just crazy to me that something of this high quality would have such a janky mechanism for locking. Perhaps @GFC will consider building something in this regard.
Good questions! I live in Santa Monica, so freezing isn’t a challenge for me, and we mostly go warm-ish places. The problem I am solving is driving around the city and having to dork around with those fiddly little locks 8x times per day, with a dog and a kid and all that nonsense.
And yes, when closed it is locked. The tailgate is part of the keyless entry so its unlock and go.
@Ari Fantastic idea! How is it holding up? Have you changed anything?
Looking to do this myself. The dream is to have all the doors unlock with the rest of the truck. I’ve already installed the automatic tailgate lock and this seems like the best solution.
knock on wood, its been holding up great. I wish it weren’t a self-mod but it works great for me. I use it daily.
Overall, I wish they were more like the super pacific – in that it was one easy to use handle and could be wired to the car unlock.
Now that I am more used to the truck I hardly go into the side panels at all, when I am in my hometown (santa Monica). When I am camping I use them constantly and just unlock them. At populated campsites its a freaking pain in the ass locking and unlocking them.
This is a great solution! Your original links don’t work for me, but after a lot of searching I was able to determine those latches are JR Products 11705. Best price I found was on eBay, if anyone else is interested.
I don’t think I can make use of the 1-handed cable pull setup you have since it would get in the way of some lights I have in that same location. I’m planning on bending the arms of the latches up to open it with two hands. Less convenient than your setup, but WAY more convenient than having to deal with those silly locks. This will also alleviate the gymnastics required when you want to close yourself inside for the night but forgot to close the latches first.
The only drawback I can see is it will eliminate the ability to just open the rear panel without opening the tailgate, but I find that my weatherstripping sticks to the top of my tailgate so I end up usually opening both, anyway.
The only downside to the cable pulls is when the truck is full of nonsense camping stuff and I have to open the tailgate to get to the stuff in the back while trying to keep everything from falling out. However, this is like 1% of the truck usage time. Mostly its a fun stuff in the truck around the city, and the cable pull mod is great.
