Barn Door for JK factory hardtops

[jscherb]

The company is called Mor/Ryde (http://www.morryde.com/), they're one of the largest accessory companies in the RV industry; most of the large RV manufacturers use their products. The've got about 600 employeess, and one of the largest and most state-of-the-art fabrication facilities in the business. A year ago they decided they wanted to get into the Jeep accessories business, so they asked me if I could help them learn a bit more about the market and help them with some product designs. They've got a range of RV and pickup truck accessories that are pretty well regarded in those markets, and now they want to get into the Jeep accessory market.

More SEMA coverage to come...

For the record: I am not an employee of Mor/Ryde.

 

[jscherb]

One more view of the Excursion Rack in the Mor/Ryde booth... when it's not carrying cargo it can be folded up vertically against the spare, and when you do that it's got a mountain scene laser cut in the panel. That wasn't part of my original design but I think it's a really nice touch.

 

[Jurfie]

Sweet, congrats on the licensing! Glad to see your hard work is paying off (and paying, period!). Might be interested in the heavy duty hinges...I'll keep watching this thread.

 

[jscherb]

Sweet, congrats on the licensing! Glad to see your hard work is paying off (and paying, period!). Might be interested in the heavy duty hinges...I'll keep watching this thread.

I think it's likely the company will do an introductory group buy for forum members, I'll keep everyone posted. If anyone wants to be notified before the general message goes up in this thread. let me know.

 

[Justincredible]

You do amazing work.

I am definitely interested in the HD hinges and spare tire jerry can holder. I'll keep my eyes peeled for any announcement.

 

[TCook]

Another accessory for the hinge base plate could be this carry basket. If you ran a fuel carrier on your spare tire then you would lose the ability to run a Trasharoo. I used mine for my whole Moab trip to carry firewood and trash.

I've also used it on local runs to clean up trails or hold trash at sporting events.

 

[jscherb]

I'm writing this just as the SEMA Show is ending. SEMA is always fun to attend, but this year of course it was more fun than usual for me because of the MorRyde product introductions. I stopped by the MorRyde booth every few hours, and almost every time they got me involved in conversations with potential customers (the definition of customer in this case would be resellers, 4WD shop owners, Jeep catalog companies..).

I stopped by one morning and a key person from one of the big catalogs had just come into the booth to see the products. Since I was there, MorRyde asked me to show him the products, so I went through all the features and benefits - this guy got it right away, and agreed with the benefits. When I finished, the MorRyde person went over the pricing with him. His reaction? He told us the product designs and the MorRyde pricing were a home run. That was the high point of this SEMA show for me .

"My" corner of the MorRyde booth, about to be torn down...

I've got lots of photos from other booths and companies at the show, I'll go through them on the plane home and so I can post things I found interesting.

 

[jscherb]

I spent some time in the Bestop booth at SEMA checking out the details of their Trektop Pro soft top. They call it a combination of the best features of a hard top and a soft top. I'm not totally convinced of that, but it does have some soft top features (soft roof and soft sides) along with some hardtop features (rear lift glass).

The two photos below are from two Jeeps in their booth; the yellow Jeep has the soft side panels in place; they've got glass sliders in them. The soft side is removed from the Trektop, leaving a plastic "halo" (that's their word), which is made from the same type of plastic as the door surrounds, and provides a mount and sealing surface for the rear lift glass.

I still don't get the idea of a fastback top though - there's so little storage space in a Jeep to begin with, for me it wouldn't work to restrict the cargo space even further with a slanted back hardtop.

 

[jscherb]

Always on the lookout for creative ideas no matter how small, in the outdoor show vehicle area at SEMA I saw an interesting use of QuickFists - the shovel in these photos is attached to the Hi-Lift jack using them; the QuickFists are held to the jack with bolts and thumbscrews so they can be quickly removed when the jack is needed.

Also I stopped by the QuickFist booth and showed them the photos of the prototype accessory rack Tom and I have been developing in this thread; they gave me some samples of different size QuickFists for testing with other types of gear as we continue the development of the accessory rack. Stay tuned for more on the accessory rack project soon.

 

[Dan Grec]

I still don't get the idea of a fastback top though - there's so little storage space in a Jeep to begin with, for me it wouldn't work to restrict the cargo space even further with a slanted back hardtop.

I'm with you Jeff.
The combination hard/soft top is interesting for sure, but the fastback doesn't make sense to me.
I think it looks ugly, and as you said, severely limits storage space.

-Dan

 

[jscherb]

I'm with you Jeff.
The combination hard/soft top is interesting for sure, but the fastback doesn't make sense to me.
I think it looks ugly, and as you said, severely limits storage space.

-Dan

There were quite a few fastback JK hardtops at SEMA, so somebody must like them .

One manufacturer of them I hadn't heard of before is Lifted Offroad. There were quite a few of their tops on various JKs around the show. I spent some time looking at the details of their top and talking to them.

They were also showing a JK double cab pickup built by Starwood Motors, which is their parent company or maybe sister company, the two companies seem to have some management in common.

I also spent some time talking to the guys at Wild Boar about some of the details of their fastback hardtop.

The only aftermarket JK hardtops in evidence at the show were fastbacks; last year at SEMA Smittybilt was showing their non-fastback hardtop, but not this year.

 

[MagicMtnDan]

A lot going on in this thread!

Interested to see how the single-piece rear door/glass works out. I'm impressed you guys are working on such an ambitious project (and doing so well).

I'm not a fan of the factory two-piece swing out door and swing up glass. I personally would prefer a fold down rear door from the factory like a pickup truck tailgate.

I like your work with Mor/Ryde and will check out the rear door hinges.

 

[Haf-E]

The fastback type top makes the jeep much more aerodynamic - I hear it adds 10 MPH and 5 MPG to a jeep JKU... its as good as having a diesel

 

[jscherb]

A lot going on in this thread!

Yes, sometimes one project I'm doing spawns ideas for other projects, so there are a few projects going on in this thread besides the basic barn door, here's an update on all of them...

Barn door: The next step for the barn door is installing a defroster grid on the glass in Tom's prototype. Once that's done, Tom will run with the barn door on his Jeep for a week or two to give the complete barn door a good test. Following testing, we'll do the final paint prep and paint and call his prototype done. The fit of the barn door is perfect, the wiring and wiper is done and works great, so it's just about a few last details now.

Heavy-Duty Tailgate Hinges: They're ready to go into production and should be available soon. The company is Mor/Ryde (http://www.morryde.com/) and for the record, I am not an employee of the company. The hinges are not on their site yet, but if you want them to keep you informed about availability and pricing, you can click on the "Contact Us" link at the top of their home page and send them a message asking to be on the Jeep hinge list.

Hinge-mounted Accessory Rack: I hope to get the prototype installed on a Jeep for testing this week. Tom and I will also be designing and prototyping more accessory mounts for it. If there's enough interest in it, I will try to get the company doing the hinges to produce it.

JK Safari Cab: I'm working on the molds for the side panels and should have them done by sometime next week. One of these days I should start a separate thread for that project.

 

[jscherb]

On the plane back from SEMA, I did some drawings of a few design ideas I have for the JK Safari Cab project.

I'm planning to do soft sides that can be swapped for the hard sides, they'll roll up as well as being removable:

I'm also thinking about full swing-up side panels. I did some prototyping of the concept on the LJ Safari Cab - while I never did a complete implementation, the idea is practical because of the modular design of the Safari Cab:

Here's an animation showing how it might work on the JK Safari Cab: