Barn Door for JK factory hardtops

[jscherb]

I know you're taller than the average bear but from what it looks like the lower step height looks well-suited for reaching anything on the rack. With one on either side, I'd bet that all but the most vertically challenged would have no trouble with just the one step on the lower hinge. I think the trade-off of having the step mounted slightly lower, and no chance of dinging up my $750 door is a no-brainer. Plus like you said, always an option to put another one on the top for those that want it.

A 5'6" friend of mine tried it and felt that it was a good height - not so high that stepping up from the ground was too hard, and not too low to make it hard to access things on the rack.

How did it feel standing on it? Did you notice much flex that you'd want to be ginger with getting up and down regularly?

They felt sturdy enough to support my 225-lb. frame just fine. I don't have any worries about using them regularly.

I can't wait for these hinges to hit production and sale. My back door hinges are all corroded and stiff as hell. I would love to replace all my hinges with these.

The factory hinge I removed to install this one showed no outward signs of corrosion, but the door surface underneath was very corroded - next time I take the hinge off I'll take a photo. Seems to me that corrosion under the door hinges is a ticking time bomb on all JK/JKU Wranglers made at least from 2007 through the middle of the 2015 model year. Since the base of these hinges is larger than the base of the factory hinge, hopefully they'll cover even advanced cases of corrosion (and best practice when installing will be to fix the corrosion before the new hinges go on).

The price is right on the step and I can see myself picking the hinges up with two steps as a bundle as soon as they're available. Any idea on the timeline retrofit might be looking at for release?

I believe the company wants to have them on the market in time for the SEMA Show (first week in November). Hopefully they'll meet that date, but they've got a lot going on right now, especially things they're trying to get ready for SEMA. But shouldn't be much longer than that if they don't release them by SEMA. I'd expect Retrofit to be the first place to have them for sale as soon as the company releases them.

As for the steps, I'll be sending an engineering drawing for the brackets to the company in a few days. As they give me updates I'll pass them on.

*edit: you know now that I think of it, that step would be the perfect spot to install those cup holders you're always talking about:sombrero:

Those would be the cup holders Comanche Scott is obsessed with. I think the next door hinge accessory I'll fab up a prototype of will be Rubican/Rotopax brackets .

 

[jscherb]

Using the same mounting bracket, steps can be installed on the HD tailgate hinges.

 

[bluehash]

Nice! Would it clear the tailight, when the gate is open(90 degrees).

 

[jscherb]

Nice! Would it clear the tailight, when the gate is open(90 degrees).

No problem - when the step is flipped down and the tailgate is fully open there are several inches of clearance between the step and the tail light.

 

[Comanche Scott]

Those would be the cup holders Comanche Scott is obsessed with. I think the next door hinge accessory I'll fab up a prototype of will be Rubican/Rotopax brackets .

Cupholders, steps... Yeah, that's like nirvana... :elkgrin:

Really like your step design. Clean and low profile.

Somewhere I swear I've seen that style of step with a built in bottle opener...

 

[southpier]

would the step mounted to only one (1) door hinge cause door alignment issues over time? a two (2) point mount may, also, but in twice the time!

 

[jscherb]

would the step mounted to only one (1) door hinge cause door alignment issues over time? a two (2) point mount may, also, but in twice the time!

I don't see why it would cause any problems if the hinge bolts are properly torqued (both body side and door side)

 

[jscherb]

I wired up the Multipod LEDs on the Garvin rack for a quick test tonight. I've got 4 Multipods mounted on the front of the rack:

Here's what they look like after dark. Headlights only:

Headlights + LEDs:

LEDs only:

From the front:

In other LED news, here's a 20" Multipod light bar I've been sent for testing. Actually more than testing, some assembly is required and I've been asked to write the assembly instructions for it, so I'll do that in the process of checking it out. I may also experiment with installing it as two 10" bars.

 

[Comanche Scott]

Looks good Jeff.

Wonder if you could get a wider beam pattern with them pointing slightly outward, without loosing too many lumen across the spread?

 

[jscherb]

Looks good Jeff.

Wonder if you could get a wider beam pattern with them pointing slightly outward, without loosing too many lumen across the spread?

As I've got the pods installed, the pattern is taller in the middle than at the outside - of the 4 pods I've got installed, the outer 2 are 10-degree spread and the inner two are 20-degree spread. If I swapped them so the outer two were the 20-degree spread I'd get a wider pattern as you suggest. And angling the mounts would also widen the spread.

I haven't given a lot of thought yet to the specific locations for the 10-degree and the 20-degree pods (or how many of each), I'll have to do some experimenting lighting up something other than the garage doors to decide what the best configuration is . All I was trying to do in this first quick test is compare overall brightness.

 

[Comanche Scott]

So what did you think as far as overall brightness goes?
One of the other things I like about where you have them mounted, is it should limit hood glare.

Why is it every time I see these lights, I think how cool they would look mounted to long tubes in a Gatling gun configuration? Would give a whole new meaning to Light Cannon...lol

 

[jscherb]

So what did you think as far as overall brightness goes?
One of the other things I like about where you have them mounted, is it should limit hood glare.

Why is it every time I see these lights, I think how cool they would look mounted to long tubes in a Gatling gun configuration? Would give a whole new meaning to Light Cannon...lol

I'm very impressed with the brightness. Last night when I first switched them on I made the mistake of looking directly at one and I it took quite a while for my vision to return to normal and stop seeing spots.

If I had all the spare time in the world, it would be fun to make a simulated machine gun but for now I've got more actually useful project ideas than I can ever get to. Do cupholders and steps come before machine guns in your list?

 

[Comanche Scott]

ROFLOL! :bowdown:
I really like the style of these lights. The brackets you've made sure makes them versatile. :beer:

 

[jscherb]

ROFLOL! :bowdown:
I really like the style of these lights. The brackets you've made sure makes them versatile. :beer:

Thank you. I really like the style and the lighting power. My goal was to combine that with a range of mounting options unmatched in the Jeep market, hopefully I've done that. And at roughly half the price of similar equivalent-spec/equivalent-quality lights from a major lighting vendor, I think they're a pretty good buy too .

 

[jscherb]

I was wandering around in ********'s Sporting Goods today looking for something completely unrelated to this post, and I came across these two items, designed to go with a standard canopy:

Seems to me with only a little adaptation they could be made into an annex/changing room under and RTT. I posted a while back that I'm in the design/planning process for sewing an annex for my RTT...

The products at ********'s don't have windows, but they could be added easily, and even if you didn't sew you could make up an annex/changing room without windows very easily using these products.

Just an idea.