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Thule locks

PostPosted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 10:46 am
by 10ringo10
thule replacment locks 002.JPG
The thule lock, a wafer lock for roof racks,car boxs,ski racks,bike racks.
Not the hardest lock to open,in the pic you,ll notice the 6 wafers,but the key only as five cuts
The last wafer his to lock the barrel in the housing and theres a universal key that thule make,which is just a longer blank key.
The normal key is just used to open and lock.
when replacing the barrel insert the key to open position them remove,insert universal key,to lift last wafer,jiggle and pull out.
Never leave the lock in the open position,because the barrel can be removed with a blank key,always lock up even if not used.
The lock will be stamped on the face, N001+N200.
IVE NOTICED YOU DONT NEED A SPECIAL KEY, JUST FILE A BIT OFF THE OLD KEY AT THE FIRST CUT,WORKS GREAT.
THIS MAKES THE KEY LONGER TO REACH THE LAST WAFER.

Re: Thule locks

PostPosted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:46 am
by MBI
Good info, thanks.

Re: Thule locks

PostPosted: Mon Mar 12, 2012 12:13 pm
by LocksmithArmy
this style lock is in many fieling cabinets... you can use a hook to lift the last wafer aswell and pull the core out and use the same hook to put it back in...

kinda a bad design in my openion...

Re: Thule locks

PostPosted: Tue Mar 13, 2012 5:54 pm
by Oldfast
Thanks for the breakdown. Good stuff

Re: Thule locks

PostPosted: Sun Jan 09, 2022 3:40 am
by askvictor
(10+ years later...) I was camping with some friends, one of whom managed to forget the keys to their Thule roof box, which contained all of their bedding. A locksmith callout to a remote area, on new years day would have cost $350 (and breaking it forcefully was not preferred as it was a new box costing $900), so I decided to see firstly if any other campers keys would fit - we couldn't find one, but one of my Thule keys (I have 3 different ones) matched my camp neighbours, so it's possible; also it later turned out that another of my keys was off-by-one for key for the roof box in question (recent Thule locks appear to be numbered N200+). Then I chanced upon this post, and tried my luck at filing a key down to hit the sixth pin. And, it worked! I'm not sure if I lucked out, but here's what I did:

I used the (home-made) master key to hit the sixth pin/wafer. This allowed me, with some jiggling, to turn the barrel about 45 degrees (or half-way between the lock and unlock positions). It would turn no further, but while jiggling, the barrel started to come out of the capsule; with a bit of coaxing I could get the barrel out completely (while in the 45 degree position). I still couldn't open the box, but then I slotted in a barrel (from a bike carrier) for which we had the key, and presto, roof box is open!

I haven't been able to reproduce this on bike carriers or roof racks, and didn't try on the capsule again (will try again when I next see my friend), but it could well be that Thule roof capsules are quite insecure, or it's by design for this kind of situation.

Re: Thule locks

PostPosted: Mon Jan 10, 2022 3:37 pm
by 10ringo10
Thule codes have a extra 50 keys in the 10 years
001 to 250 series codes
decoded the 50 keys to get them a few years back as not available