Barn Door for JK factory hardtops
- Thread starter jscherb
- Start date
jscherb
Expedition Leader
Thanks Donny! I'll let Robert know you said so, he did 75% of the work. For a first fiberglass project it came out great.
Florida Native
Active member
jscherb
Expedition Leader
The virus situation has greatly slowed the release of some new products from MORryde - one of the delayed products is the overhead lockbox. They sent me these photos of a preproduction sample the other day, hopefully it'll get released soon.
A few photos of the first prototype in my JKU. Left to right: stowed (not visible), swung down, swung down and open.
A few photos of the first prototype in my JKU. Left to right: stowed (not visible), swung down, swung down and open.
jscherb
Expedition Leader
Photobucket is having issues today. The photos were showing up earlier and I'm sure will be fine when they get their issues sorted out.
jscherb
Expedition Leader
Recently I designed a clip-on propane stove option for the Trail Kitchen, I posted photos of it a few months ago.
I tested it with 1-lb. disposable propane canisters and with the 20-lb. propane tank from my backyard gas grille and it worked very well with both. I'm now trying to decide if I should use it with the 1-lb. disposable cans or if I should get something larger, like a 5-lb. tank. If I get a 5-lb., I'm thinking of designing a tank mount that will bolt to the tailgate hinges, located like this:
The mounts on the market are pretty expensive, but a hinge-mount like this could be made for a very reasonable cost of materials. And it would bolt to the hinges with no drilling, and be easily removable when the Jeep was being used for daily driving.
Also, anyone have any good sources for 5-lb. tanks? There are none to be had locally, so I'd have to order one.
I tested it with 1-lb. disposable propane canisters and with the 20-lb. propane tank from my backyard gas grille and it worked very well with both. I'm now trying to decide if I should use it with the 1-lb. disposable cans or if I should get something larger, like a 5-lb. tank. If I get a 5-lb., I'm thinking of designing a tank mount that will bolt to the tailgate hinges, located like this:
The mounts on the market are pretty expensive, but a hinge-mount like this could be made for a very reasonable cost of materials. And it would bolt to the hinges with no drilling, and be easily removable when the Jeep was being used for daily driving.
Also, anyone have any good sources for 5-lb. tanks? There are none to be had locally, so I'd have to order one.
I don't have any sources but I do have a 5-lb tank that I bought few years ago from a local Ace hw store, and I'm very interested to see what you come up with for a mount on the JKU.Recently I designed a clip-on propane stove option for the Trail Kitchen, I posted photos of it a few months ago.
I tested it with 1-lb. disposable propane canisters and with the 20-lb. propane tank from my backyard gas grille and it worked very well with both. I'm now trying to decide if I should use it with the 1-lb. disposable cans or if I should get something larger, like a 5-lb. tank. If I get a 5-lb., I'm thinking of designing a tank mount that will bolt to the tailgate hinges, located like this:
The mounts on the market are pretty expensive, but a hinge-mount like this could be made for a very reasonable cost of materials. And it would bolt to the hinges with no drilling, and be easily removable when the Jeep was being used for daily driving.
Also, anyone have any good sources for 5-lb. tanks? There are none to be had locally, so I'd have to order one.
jscherb
Expedition Leader
Here's the design. A few weeks ago I posted a hinge-mounted jerry can carrier I designed and built:
That design was based on commercial HD shelf brackets which were bolted to the hinges, and a jerry can tray then bolted to the brackets:
For the propane tank I'll use the same brackets and the same basic design. I'll make a simple tray sized for the propane tank and bolt it to the brackets:
To secure the can to the tray, I'll use a ratchet strap. Rhino-Rack offers a can holder for their roof racks that uses a ratchet strap:
The Rhino strap has a metal ring that goes over the valve, it's visible in the photo above. That's a fine design but it's more expensive than it needs to be - the strap can be 100% webbing and sewed with an "eye" in the middle to go over the valve, it's a trivial sewing project and will be plenty strong for this application.
When I did the jerry can mount I was able to make the brackets fit both the JK hinges and the LJ hinges, so this propane tank mount will also fit both Jeeps, which is good because I use the Trail Kitchen in both. It'll install/remove in minutes to the hinges and the ratchet strap will make it easy to install/remove the tank from the mount.
Alloy
Well-known member
Here's the design. A few weeks ago I posted a hinge-mounted jerry can carrier I designed and built:
That design was based on commercial HD shelf brackets which were bolted to the hinges, and a jerry can tray then bolted to the brackets:
For the propane tank I'll use the same brackets and the same basic design. I'll make a simple tray sized for the propane tank and bolt it to the brackets:
To secure the can to the tray, I'll use a ratchet strap. Rhino-Rack offers a can holder for their roof racks that uses a ratchet strap:
The Rhino strap has a metal ring that goes over the valve, it's visible in the photo above. That's a fine design but it's more expensive than it needs to be - the strap can be 100% webbing and sewed with an "eye" in the middle to go over the valve, it's a trivial sewing project and will be plenty strong for this application.
When I did the jerry can mount I was able to make the brackets fit both the JK hinges and the LJ hinges, so this propane tank mount will also fit both Jeeps, which is good because I use the Trail Kitchen in both. It'll install/remove in minutes to the hinges and the ratchet strap will make it easy to install/remove the tank from the mount.
Something with some strech that would hold tension on the hooks would be ideal. I've had the hooks on bunji cords ratchet straps fall out when things shift around.
jscherb
Expedition Leader
In my experience a ratchet strap properly secured against a solid object on a rigid tray won't fall out. The Rhino Rack strap pictured above doesn't have any stretch, and I've never had any issues with jerry cans secured in trays with ratchet straps, I use these all the time:
jscherb
Expedition Leader
Waiting for the 5-lb. propane tank to arrive, I made a cardstock mockup of the tray. I assembled the mockup on the LJ because there's slightly less room to the spare on the LJ; if it fits on the LJ it'll also fit the JK.
Tank will sit like this:
I'll get back on the project when the tank arrives.
Tank will sit like this:
I'll get back on the project when the tank arrives.
jscherb
Expedition Leader
Finished the tailgate-hinge propane tank mount. This mount bolts to the MORryde hinges (JK or TJ) with no drilling, and it's easily removable for when the Jeep is being used for daily driving. Haven't painted it yet, but here it is installed on the LJ:
When this is bolted to the hinges it gets in the way of my CB antenna mount so I added holes in two locations in the tray for an antenna.
And for times when I might want to carry a propane tank but have something else mounted to the tailgate hinges, the design includes the capability of bolting it to a roof rack. The rack isn't on the Jeep at the moment (I store the rack hanging from the garage door rails above the Jeep so it may look like the rack is on the Jeep in this photo), but here's the mount and tank installed on the roof rack:
I made up a special ratchet strap to secure the tank:
Seems to work pretty well.
When this is bolted to the hinges it gets in the way of my CB antenna mount so I added holes in two locations in the tray for an antenna.
And for times when I might want to carry a propane tank but have something else mounted to the tailgate hinges, the design includes the capability of bolting it to a roof rack. The rack isn't on the Jeep at the moment (I store the rack hanging from the garage door rails above the Jeep so it may look like the rack is on the Jeep in this photo), but here's the mount and tank installed on the roof rack:
I made up a special ratchet strap to secure the tank:
Seems to work pretty well.