Barn Door for JK factory hardtops

[jscherb]

Yes please! I've been wanting half-doors, but as you said: expensive. None of the aftermarket versions I've seen are suitable, IMHO. Something simple that seals well, with an inner panel that doesn't look too raw would be a welcome design. An armrest would be nice, for when the uppers are installed.

None of the aftermarket half doors are acceptable to me either. My #1 design criteria is that the doors be as weatherproof as the factory half doors and suitable for daily driver use in the northeast, all 4 seasons if desired.

Yes, I'm thinking armrests should be part of the design. One design I've been thinking about would have the armrests be an option, and removable. If you don't want them or don't need them most of the time because you usually run without uppers, then you wouldn't install them. They'd install at the same level as the tops of the doors so you didn't have different height armrests depending on whether you had the uppers installed or had the uppers off and were using the tops of the doors as armrests.

I would also design compartments inside the doors for storage.

The inner shell would be designed so it would easily accept a door card with fabric/vinyl/leather to match the interior, but door cards wouldn't be necessary - the fiberglass would be designed to look fine without door cards.

 

[jscherb]

At least 20 years before AEV introduced the Brute, Mahindra pickups were cruising around India by the thousands. Here's a typical pickup with stake sides added to contain larger cargo:

This one seems well used:

I literally saw thousands of examples of the Mahindra PikUp (that's how they spell it) on my 2100km road trip through Rajasthan, although the majority of them have had the bed removed and replaced with something like this (and quite a few of them are also a little swaybacked like this first one):

This one has the original bed that's been lifted a bit, and a canvas cover with roll-up sides. Handy little roof rack on the cab too.

 

[akpostal]

Similar to a CJ10, very cool

 

[jscherb]

Similar to a CJ10, very cool

Yes, they're very similar except that the Mahindra PikUp doesn't have the goofy grille that the Jeep CJ10's did. Here's a CJ-10 brochure in Spanish showing the grille...

 

[rubicon91]

None of the aftermarket half doors are acceptable to me either. My #1 design criteria is that the doors be as weatherproof as the factory half doors and suitable for daily driver use in the northeast, all 4 seasons if desired.

The issue here is the fact that the very few that are on the market that have uppers either are not well designed or they cost just a little less than OEM half doors. I would love a nice set of half doors again that would not break the bank. I loved the ones I had. Cannot wait to see if you do tackle this project Jeff!

 

[jscherb]

I'm in Amritsar, Punjab now. Here modifying Jeeps for styling reasons is popular, I've seen several modified Thars although this is the only one I've gotten a photo of, it's had a lot of work done to it to make it look like a JK...

 

[jscherb]

The issue here is the fact that the very few that are on the market that have uppers either are not well designed or they cost just a little less than OEM half doors. I would love a nice set of half doors again that would not break the bank. I loved the ones I had. Cannot wait to see if you do tackle this project Jeff!

I agree. An example of poor design - a few years back a company came out with half doors and promised "soon" to release uppers for them. Three years later they were finally showing the uppers at SEMA last fall so I checked them out. The windows are plastic (lexan, plexiglass or similar) so they'll scratch from sliding open and closed and the channels the window panels slide in are guaranteed to leak - best practice for sliding windows is to have weep holes on the outside of the channels to drain the channels - without weep holes the channels will fill up in the rain and with nowhere else to go some of the water will leak inside. The channels on these did not have weep holes so it's unlikely they're as weatherproof as I would need them to be. I also don't recall that there's a lock to prevent the window from being slid open from the outside. Can't use these for a daily driver, at least not where I live.

 

[rubicon91]

I agree. An example of poor design - a few years back a company came out with half doors and promised "soon" to release uppers for them. Three years later they were finally showing the uppers at SEMA last fall so I checked them out. The windows are plastic (lexan, plexiglass or similar) so they'll scratch from sliding open and closed and the channels the window panels slide in are guaranteed to leak - best practice for sliding windows is to have weep holes on the outside of the channels to drain the channels - without weep holes the channels will fill up in the rain and with nowhere else to go some of the water will leak inside. The channels on these did not have weep holes so it's unlikely they're as weatherproof as I would need them to be. I also don't recall that there's a lock to prevent the window from being slid open from the outside. Can't use these for a daily driver, at least not where I live.

Ha I know that company really well. I had their half doors about 4-5 years ago on the black jeep for about 7 months. Got tired of the upper issue so I sold them. I looked at the price after the uppers came out to see and they raised the price on the lowers quite a bit too. For the complete package it isn't much less than oem doors so why even bother with them.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

 

[rubicon91]

Jeff after i just posted i had to go look and see when I had them. This picture was posted Dec 2013 lol glad I did get rid of them as i thought the wait for my J30 was long haha

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

 

[jscherb]

Jeff after i just posted i had to go look and see when I had them. This picture was posted Dec 2013 lol glad I did get rid of them as i thought the wait for my J30 was long haha

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

Wow, the wait was way longer than I thought! And waiting for a poor design too.

Posting from a train enroute from Amritsar to Chandigarh, about 6am where I am...

 

[cj-10]

Come on now that grill is a thing of beauty

 

[jscherb]

If you order a new Mahindra PikUp from the factory without a bed, here's what you get. This one is on the way from the factory to its new owner, it was part of a convoy of 3 I spotted yesterday. Nice platform for building a camper or whatever you can dream up. This one has the current model squared-off front end sheet metal.

 

[akpostal]

That would be pimp. Every time a see a CJ10 for sale I am to poor to buy it.

 

[jscherb]

I'm in the "Hill Station" town of Simla at 6,000 ft. in the Himalayan foothills now, and this is how trash collection is done here. I guess technically you could call this Jeep a "garbage truck" because that's its function. The writing on the side identifies it as belonging to the Municipal Corporation of Simla.

Background on Simla - from about 1860 through 1947 Simla was the summer capital of the British Raj. Apparently the Brits found it too hot to stay in Delhi all summer long so they retreated to cooler elevations.

A nice PikUp I spotted in Simla, this one also belongs to the town:

I've got some work to do here too - I've got an assignment to write a magazine article on the Kalka-Simla narrow gauge railway for a magazine.

 

[jgaz]

Safe travels sir, thanks for the pictures.