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Sure, you can PUT it in your Jeep, but can you keep it there? Any soft top or no-top rig is an easy victim for the common thief. Keeping your baubles and bangles where they belong is a challenge when a pocket knife is all you need to defeat the average soft top. Since storage space is at a premium in a small Jeep, making use of existing space is a good idea.

The glove box is a likely spot to improve upon. The stock plastic box is pretty easily broken into and is really only safe for chewing gum and old road maps. Tuffy makes all kinds of locking, steel security products for all kinds of vehicles, but Jeeps are well represented in the range of storage boxes, consoles, etc. The Tuffy glovebox weighs 9lbs and is coated in a tough black finish. The Pry-Guard II lock looks pretty substantial and I cannot imagine the casual thief simply popping this thing open with a screwdriver.

The installation is very straight forward. Remove the old box following the instructions (mine was already out from earlier work). Hardware is included for the new box. First, the angle brackets are placed onto the existing dash frame. The two holes in each bracket that are through-drilled attach to the dash frame and the riv-nuts side of the bracket will face the sides of the new glove box. It is a tight fit between the brackets. There is wiggle room in the bracket holes to get it all lined up, but I had to slide the brackets as far apart (against the edges of the metal dash frame) as I could, then the Tuffy box is slid into place. I had to enlarge the holes in the Tuffy box by a teensy bit to get the screws started but then it all lined up. The screws that secure the top of the old box into the dash are re-used (not shown).

It felt very solid once mounted. One thing I noticed is that the lid closes securely and opens easily but is prone to rattling once closed. I looked at this for a while and spent ten whole minutes making a gizmo that puts pressure on the lid to keep it from moving once closed. I took a rubber bumper thingy I found and used an old Dick Cepek tow hook clip that was made of stainless steel. I cut the hook part of the clip off and, using the two holes that were in the clip, ran one screw that secured the Tuffy box through it and screwed the rubber bumper to the other hole. A less than 90* bend in the clip made for a slighty springy and adjustable anti-rattle apparatus. Cool. Now Tuffy needs to do something to solve that for us as this is a complaint I have heard from others, that being rattles, etc.

I placed a piece of rubber material into the bottom of the box for noise reduction with hard items in the box. One other thing I would like to see: A full rubber seal around the box would go a long ways toward keeping dust out of the box. As of right now, there is no such seal on the sides of the box. That might also keep the lid from being a squeaky wheel on a bumpy trail.

Overall, I am really happy with the Tuffy box and I feel much better about keeping my things 'mine'.

Tuffy Security Products 1-800-34-TUFFY