“Unlocking” old roof bars

ok team, someone must have dealt with this before…..

i bought a secondhand canopy for the back of my truck which has roof bars attached. The bars appear to be locked on but the yard I bought from had no keys.

i could do with removing them, ideally in a way that allows reuse ( but not re-locking) since they make the truck slightly too high for some car parks etc.

i can’t see a code on any of the locks and I can’t see a brand marked on the bars so don’t know where to start with getting a replacement key.

ideas?

Ps.

pics here……

Bars

Screwdriver and a hammer.

They’re probably going to need to just be picked. Those kind of locks are normally very simple, wafer locks and can be raked relatively easily

Perhaps look on Facebook for a local lock picking club?

If they are like the Thule ones they have a key number on the lock.

Those kind of locks tend to be pretty trivial to pick, watch a couple of videos and have a stab at it.

Yeah there’s no key number on the locks sadly and I can’t see what brand they are either.

guessing the hammer technique involves bashing the screwdriver far enough in and turning?

They’re normally simple barrel locks, that shouldn’t be too hard to pick. Codes are normally on the core to try and make things harder for thieves.

Basic principle:

Just try any old key. I used the wrong key in ours for a while before I realised. Worked fine!

Or a self tapping screw in a slide hammer

I used a screw driver to unlock the ones on my bike carrier when I forgot the key once* and the locks still ‘works’ with the keys. Just shoved it in and turned hard.

*Wasn’t going home to get it as I was in Spain!!

They’re cheapo Aldi or Lidl bars (I think made by mamoet). The locks are probably corroded solidly. I’d just hack them off with an angle grinder. There should be an Allen bolt behind them to unwind the clamp. Stick an old towel on the roof to protect it and they’ll be gone in 30 seconds.

Does that lock actually lock the bars on to the canopy or does it just lock access to the t-slot? That’s different things and depending on what you want to use on them you might not need to unlock them.

Appreciate you want to remove them from the canopy but that might be possible without unlocking?

You can literally pull them off with a pair of box joint pliers, then (if you can identify the bars) buy some new ends off ebay if you want to use again: https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2334524.m570.l1313&_nkw=aero+roof+bar+caps&_sacat=0&_odkw=roof+bar+caps&_osacat=0

Seconding screwdriver. Similar problem here a while back – just shoved a screwdriver in and twisted (not even that hard) and they opened. Probably quicker than it would be even if you had the keys if the locks are a bit rusted/weathered.

Definitely worth a try before getting pliers/grinders to them!

Thanks all

The plastic end wobbles around if you grab it so i’m assuming its just a locked cover over what ever actually tightens the bar on so pulling or hacking the cover off might be a go. Wouldn’t surprise me if the mechanisms are rusted anyway –  the little slot covers seem a bit seized on three of the locks.

I got a set of these bars from machine mart. The locks are absolute cheese.  Can confirm a screwdriver will do the job 😀

Edit…. I can see this Allen bolt head underneath  does the lock cover just (fail to) prevent access to this bolt to undo the clamp?

There doesn’t seem to be anything else in that slot between the plastic cover and the bolt!

Yeah, a long allen key will undo the clamp and you can lift the whole thing off with the still locked end caps, then remove them in your own time

My feeling is that the lock is quite a distance from the clamp and I can’t really see how it would have anything to do with the clamp itself, obviously people who have similar bars might know more. I suspect as mert says, undo that bolt and you’ll be able to get the bars off

The lock is just to stop you opening the cover and getting a long allen key in there. You could put a shorter one in the bolt shown in the photo, but there isn’t much room to turn it so it’ll be a pain is the arse and take ages to undo it.

Might be able to get to the 5mm effectively with one of those flexi extension bars and a electric screwdriver.

You’ll need a bloody long 5mm hex key looking at that picture

SUCCESS!

So as suggested above, the locking cap is supposed to prevent access to the hex bolt in the picture and there by prevent you from undoing the clamps……

Except clearly the caps are miles away from the hex bolt and you can reach the hex bolt with a basic allen key to undo the clamp, which i’ve just managed to do – fiddly but do able and no damage to the bars.

You would need a ridiculously long allen key access from the end that the cap covers in this case but i suspect is fortunate that the bars the clamps attach to are quite inset on the canopy compared to the full width of the roof.

Cheers for your help everyone!