Barn Door for JK factory hardtops

[jscherb]

This is an interesting idea. I run my soft top as much as I can so a barn door wouldn't work for me but I like see cool stuff for JK's anyhow.

My friend Tom, who's working with me on the barn door project, has the dual top option on his JK, and he wants to be able to use the barn door with his soft top as well as his. We've done a preliminary design to adapt the barn door to the soft top; here's a concept drawing:

I've done a soft barn door for my LJ, and it works great. It's so much more convenient to access the rear cargo area through the barn door than having to unzip the dirty soft top rear window .

The JK version would support both the hard barn door and a soft one like the one on my LJ.

I really like that LJ!

Thanks.

 

[jscherb]

The bodywork on the master for the barn door inner skin is complete and it's been shot with high-build primer:

Tomorrow I'll sand the high build, fix any flaws that the primer inevitably makes visible, and shoot it with epoxy. Then it will be ready for moldmaking.

 

[jcb-memphis]

That looks amazing....will be buying this for my jkur14 if you can get it to a for sale state. Love the work/idea/models. It looks great!
Thanks!

jb

 

[jscherb]

That looks amazing....will be buying this for my jkur14 if you can get it to a for sale state. Love the work/idea/models. It looks great!
Thanks!

jb

Thank you.

I don't know if these will get to a "for sale state"... I'll be molding several prototype barn doors for testing, but beyond those initial test units if it's to become generally available some company is going to have to sign up to bring it to market. I'm not in business to sell anything - I just build these projects as a hobby, but in the past few years four of my other fiberglass designs have been picked up by companies for production (and I'm in the middle of a discussions with two companies about another one of my designs), so it's possible the barn door could end up in production too.

 

[jscherb]

The mold master for the inner skin of the barn door has been shot with epoxy and is now ready to have a mold made from it.

The next step in the process is making final molds from the inner skin master (above) and the outer skin master (below). Once these molds are made, which will happen in the next few days, actual barn doors can be made.

Should be molding the first barn door or two next week.

 

[TexasSpeedRacer]

Excellent work sir!!!

I will be one of the first in line to purchase one of these if/when they become available. One of the things that I cannot believe about the JK is both the back window and sides of the hard top are not removable.

If we were to have a hard top with soft sides I would like it to be similar to your TJ. The slant/racer back soft top just doesn't do it for me.

The other plus (and my reason for my interest) you will be able to use a front runner roof rack (or similar style) and still have the ability to be quasi-open top. This barn door prototype would be a fantastic upgrade over the OEM soft top window. My mind's eye sees my jeep with this style of half hard top with my half doors; Well, it makes me happy.


I am attaching some photos to show the ingenuity and talent that Mr Scherb possesses:




and building on that idea...




I have purchased a second hard top in hopes of:

Hard top #1- Hard Top Section using the Freedom Panels and using Soft Top Sides. I plan on cutting up a soft top and attaching it to the hard top upper rear panel. Similar to Mr. Scherb's TJ with the soft sides.

Hard Top #2 - Keeping the top in one piece but creating gull wing doors (like the second set of pictures) and having a enclosed storage space between the hard top and roll bar. This would be great place to keep recovery tools, winching equipment, air compressor tools, etc.

Keep up the great work.

TSR

Mr. Scherb... I am the one who emailed you a couple a months ago about my hard top projects. Thanks for the insight.

 

[jscherb]

Excellent work sir!!!

I will be one of the first in line to purchase one of these if/when they become available. One of the things that I cannot believe about the JK is both the back window and sides of the hard top are not removable.

Thank you.

If we were to have a hard top with soft sides I would like it to be similar to your TJ. The slant/racer back soft top just doesn't do it for me.

The other plus (and my reason for my interest) you will be able to use a front runner roof rack (or similar style) and still have the ability to be quasi-open top. This barn door prototype would be a fantastic upgrade over the OEM soft top window. My mind's eye sees my jeep with this style of half hard top with my half doors; Well, it makes me happy.


I have purchased a second hard top in hopes of:

Hard top #1- Hard Top Section using the Freedom Panels and using Soft Top Sides. I plan on cutting up a soft top and attaching it to the hard top upper rear panel. Similar to Mr. Scherb's TJ with the soft sides.

Hard Top #2 - Keeping the top in one piece but creating gull wing doors (like the second set of pictures) and having a enclosed storage space between the hard top and roll bar. This would be great place to keep recovery tools, winching equipment, air compressor tools, etc.

Good luck with your projects!

If you remove the sides of the factory soft top, you'll need to do some engineering to strengthen things up, especially if you plan on putting a roof rack on top. I've tied the roof rack mounts directly to the roll bars in the LJ Safari Cab design, so heavy loads can be supported on top whether or not the sides are in place. You'll probably want to do something similar.

Because of the roll-bar tie-in, the roof-top tent can be used with either the hard sides or the soft sides (hard sides shown below), because none of the weight is borne by the roof - all of the weight is transferred directly to the roll bars.

The JK Safari Cab will have the same load-carrying capability that the LJ version does.

 

[libarata]

What about a rear window that props open at the bottom, or can slide down for some extra ventilation?

 

[jscherb]

What about a rear window that props open at the bottom, or can slide down for some extra ventilation?

A window that swings out wouldn't swing very far - the third brake light bracket would be in the way, and even if that were removed, the spare would be in the way.

A horizontal or vertical slider could be installed, although you'd have to choose between a fixed window with optionally a wiper and/or defroster or a slider with nether of those options - wipers and defrosters aren't compatible with sliders.

But there are choices that would work if ventilation was a priority.

Pretty much any commercial RV/Marine window style could be made to the proper size. One place that makes custom size window in all kinds of different configurations is Motion Windows: http://www.motionwindows.com/, they could make pretty much any of their windows to fit this opening.

 

[jscherb]

There's been a lot of discussion about various window types for the barn door, so I'm going to present a few ideas here and ask for your input on which barn door window style you'd want to have if you installed a barn door on your JK.

The options are:

• A. Fixed glass. Simple fixed glass, non-opening. Options that could be available with this include a wiper and a defroster, both of which would be plug-and-play with the JK's factory hardtop wiring.
  
• B. Horizontal slider. Typically these have one side of the window that slides; the other is fixed. The sliding side could be either the left or the right side. Because of the center divider bar, a wiper would not be compatible with this style of window. A defroster would not be an option for this one either.
  
• C. Vertical slider. Similar to option B above but slides vertically. Also not compatible with the wiper or defroster options.
  
• D. Swappable hard/soft windows. There would be a glass panel could be swapped with a canvas/clear vinyl roll-up soft window. As far as I know, there are no commercial windows available that work this way, but I've been working on a design for one. I actually started working on the design for this back when I built the LJ Safari Cab; I did a preliminary design for it and even molded a special fiberglass panel for it and but never built a prototype window of this design to completion.

I should also mention a few window types that are not under consideration for this barn door:

- Swing-out/swing-up windows. They're impractical on a Jeep barn door because the third brake light bracket and the spare tire prevent them from swinging out any meaningful amount.

- Roll-down windows like on car doors. This would require somewhere for the window to roll down into, and since the barn door is designed to mount on the factory tailgate, there's nowhere for the window to roll down into.

- Motorized or otherwise powered retractable windows.

So of the options in the list above the illustration, if you were going to have a barn door on your JK, which window type would you want and why? Or, is there some window type or option you'd want that's not mentioned here?

Thanks in advance for the input.

 

[Comanche Scott]

Hi Jeff,

Awesome progress!
Great window ideas. For my usage (with the Ursa Minor J30 top) I would probably choose the swappable window. Unless the vertical slider could slide down from the top. Sliding up, any breeze would be blocked by all the stuff on the tire carrier.
Sliding down would allow the use of a "visor", so the window could be open slightly while keeping out the rain. Something like this:
http://www.jeepworld.com/accessories/wrangler/ventvisor.htm

 

[jscherb]

We made the molds for both parts of the barn door this evening. Here's Tom hard at work finishing up the inner skin mold. The outer skin mold is in the left of the photo, it's black.

Here's a look at the inner skin mold:

Tomorrow morning I'll pop these molds off the masters. I'll post photos of the inside of the molds then.

Depending on what else I've got to do tomorrow, I may mold the first set of actual barn door parts in these molds.

 

[jscherb]

The molds popped off the mold masters just fine this morning. Here they are just after a quick trim of the rough edges and a quick washing with the hose. There's still a little mold release to wash off in places:

There's one very tiny flaw in the inner skin mold I'll fix, then I'll buff both molds, and prep them for molding. I'll make the first set of actual barn door parts in them today.

 

[jscherb]

Here are a few photos of the molds prepped and ready to have the gelcoat shot on them. I've taped off the parts of the mold that won't be needed - there's no need to mold the inside of the window opening since that will just be cut out anyway. I am molding the inside of the window opening on the outside panel; I'll use the flat piece of fiberglass that get cut out as the cover plate for the wiper motor. I've also taped the edges of both molds because this first set of parts will be for an early model narrow barn door - don't need to mold extra width that will just be trimmed off.

I'll shoot the gelcoat shortly, and after lunch I'll do the fiberglass layup.

 

[Comanche Scott]

Very cool! Nice to have someone to work with. It's both motivating, and fun.
A lot of times I prefer to help friends work on their stuff to working on my own, just for that reason.
Looking forward to seeing how they come out and go together.