I have looked at many aftermarket options for a tailgate lock on my 93 Pickup Xcab 4x4 V6 and all of them say same thing...sorry, not for this truck. But I find it hard to believe that it is impossible, so I was wondering if any of you have done such a thing to your older Yota trucks? I am really wanting to install a tonneau cover of some sort and would like the ability to lock it all up.

 

Here's what I did to use as a deterrent, it's an idea to get you started. Been working for me for a number of years, you may need a beefier setup depending on what you're trying to secure and areas you visit (ie..a lot of dumbasses/crack heads in your area of operation)

 

every truck i've ever had a shell on (and all my dad's work trucks), we simply install one of those $1.50 sliding bolt latches on the inside of tailgate, on both sides. Usually the shell/cover has a lock, so you have to open that first to get at the latch. You can get the lockable versions if you want, but we've never had a problem with the cheap ones in the past 25yrs we've been using them.


the system shown above in Grego's post will work, but it will likely damage your paint and tail light housing once you start driving with it - so I'd personally put that option on the bottom of the list.

 

Hhahahha...I get that all the time, there is padded felt behind the lock. I have tens of thousands of miles on the truck over many years with it that way. If you knew how anal I was about my truck you'd have known that wasn't happening. I even had a back-up plan of putting a small square of 3M clear bra if that didn't work by itself. It took me a while to figure out how to mount a lock without exposing holes if I ever wanted to remove it someday.

The idea with the sliding latches is a pretty good idea, but I figured out rather quickly it doesn't work on most tonneau covers. You have to lower the tailgate in order to release the latches to roll the cover back, thus the lock must be on the outside of the tailgate. If you have a cover or shell that has a lock on the outside then the simple/obvious answer is the non-locking sliding latch like above.