Barn Door for JK factory hardtops

[Comanche Scott]

It just dawned on me, that with the rack-to-Sport bar brackets installed, the whole roof panel is supported. Which makes it even easier to do wrap-around soft sides.
The Barn door could go in a bag (like the OEM Freedom top panels) for quick install on the trail when needed.
Modular designs are so cool, because of all the different possibilities.

It's a lot of fun to follow along on this project! :beer:

 

[jscherb]

It just dawned on me, that with the rack-to-Sport bar brackets installed, the whole roof panel is supported. Which makes it even easier to do wrap-around soft sides.
The Barn door could go in a bag (like the OEM Freedom top panels) for quick install on the trail when needed.
Modular designs are so cool, because of all the different possibilities.

It's a lot of fun to follow along on this project! :beer:

Thanks .

Most often when I'm on the trail in my LJ Safari it's summer, so I'm usually running half doors, roll-up sides and the soft barn door. Because the Safari Cab roof is taller than the factory hardtop roof, there's storage space above the roll bars for the half door uppers AND the soft barn door, so I can remove all of them when I get to the trailhead and store them out of the way "in the attic" - this photo shows the half door uppers stored up there. The barn door upper isn't up there in this photo, but it stores on top of the half door uppers:

And if I want an even more open air experience while I'm on the trail, I'll take the half doors off and throw them on the roof rack:

Now you might say I should just run a soft top, but most of my off-road trips are either in Colorado or Utah, and I live in upstate NY. Having the hard roof of the Safari Cab plus the glass sliders of the half doors really makes the 1600+ mile trip from home to trail a pleasure - much nicer than doing that trip in a noisy soft top. Plus I can carry gear on the rack, like an extra spare.

Anyway... I'm planning all the same for the JK Safari cab .

 

[jscherb]

Soon I'll have to make the most difficult decision of the Safari Cab project - what color to paint it? I've colorized one of the photos from the last install to see various color schemes. The colorization isn't perfect but I think it gives a reasonably good idea of what a color combo will look like. Please let me know which of these are your favorites, or if there is some other color or combo I should try. I can also show some of these images larger, but for this first color post I made them smaller because there are so many possibilities to show.

This Jeep is Heather's daily driver so she gets the final say, but maybe if there's one scheme that most people like we can influence her choice .

 

[minuit]

I'd vote black or white!=

 

[stomperxj]

White over cherry, Tan over cherry and black over cherry all look good

 

[Comanche Scott]

My favorite from what you posted is the body color sides & rear, with white top.
en480c4 thought body color side with silver top to match the bumper insets would look great. That may be an awesome way to go as well.

 

[tlbeach]

Yes, the white over cherry looks really good.

 

[crusaderJK]

Black over cherry!

 

[justageek]

Still love white over body color. Zero desire for a black top here in Texas.

Sent from my Nexus 6 using Tapatalk

 

[crusaderJK]

Have you taken the soft sides into consideration?
Don't know what colors would be available for those, but a red Jeep with a white top and black side windows would look odd.

 

[jscherb]

Have you taken the soft sides into consideration?
Don't know what colors would be available for those, but a red Jeep with a white top and black side windows would look odd.

I showed Heather the colorized photos this afternoon, and she seems to be ruling out any use of white, so the scenario you mentioned isn't likely .

The soft sides could be whatever color I find canvas for. I've got black material on hand that matches the JK soft top, but I'm sure I could get khaki or tan as well.

 

[jscherb]

Since Heather has ruled out the use of white and the most popular options according to all the people who have given input are cherry sides and a different color roof, I've worked up a few showing what the soft sides and soft barn door would look like. The canvas parts would probably be black to match the factory soft top canvas. In these images I've done all cherry and black roof over cherry with soft sides and soft sides + soft barn door.

 

[jscherb]

Something I'm thinking about is finishing off the barn door first and running that a while with the factory hardtop while I work on finishing off the other parts of the Safari Cab. Depending on the final color scheme for the hardtop, the barn door could end up being hardtop color, or it could end up being body color, or maybe some other color. Shown below - a factory hardtop with a hardtop color barn door, a body color barn door, and a canvas soft barn door.

The soft barn door would work with the factory hardtop, and be removable just like the one I made for the LJ Safari Cab.

 

[AML]

I know you have already heard this a million times, but you do great work. Hats off to you!

 

[jscherb]

I know you have already heard this a million times, but you do great work. Hats off to you!

Thank you very much .