Barn Door for JK factory hardtops

[stomperxj]

Turned out nice Jeff. Flawless execution as always

 

[jscherb]

Turned out nice Jeff. Flawless execution as always

Thank you!

 

[jscherb]

I've got to decide what color to paint the barn door... mostly this depends on the color I'm going to paint the rest of the Safari Cab hardtop, which isn't quite decided yet. The color of the roof panel is still very much undecided, but most likely I'll paint the sides of the hardtop the same color as the Jeep, which means that the barn door should also be body color. That means until I finish the hardtop/while I'm still running a factory hardtop, the Jeep will look as it does in the illustration at left. If I were keeping the factory hardtop, I'd probably paint the barn door the same as the hardtop. These illustrations aren't as accurate as I'd like because it's really hard to color-match to a salt-encrusted Jeep, but I think they're close enough to give a reasonable idea of what the Jeep would look like for the short term.

The most likely color scheme for the Safari Cab will be black over cherry. I'd do a white roof but Heather doesn't care for a white roof, and it is her daily driver so she gets the deciding vote. I'm still open to suggestions on the color scheme though.

 

[jscherb]

Now that I've got the mounting hardware for the barn door in place on the JK tailgate, I'm also going to make a soft barn door, which will attach to the same mounting points. I made a soft barn door for the LJ Safari Cab, and it's worked out great - here are some photos.

I made the LJ soft barn door with a fixed vinyl window, but for the JK version I plan to make the window open - it'll zip just like the factory half door uppers. The unzipped window can either just hang down inside like the windows on the factory half door uppers, or it can be rolled and held with snap straps.

The Soft Barn Door will be compatible with both the JK Safari Cab and the factory hardtop. When used with the factory hardtop, the glass liftgate would be removed when this is installed. In addition to the openable window, the entire thing will be easily and quickly removable, like half door uppers are.

 

[jscherb]

One of the details I had to do before I could declare the JK Safari Cab roof panel done and ready to begin the paint process is finish up the drip rails. The drip rail, which includes the inside bolt flange for attaching the roof to the sides, is a separate part the gets bonded to the bottom of the roof panel. I had bonded everything together before the test last fitting of the top but I hadn't finished off the drip rail. The top of the drip rail still needed to be trimmed and the inside of the drip rail needed to be sealed. Sealing the drip rail involves filling it half-full with liquid epoxy, which completely seals it and provides a nice uniform inside surface. The epoxy I used is a very thin liquid and flows very well, so the roof panel has to be absolutely level before the epoxy cures. I set the roof on one of my trailers and used the tongue jack to level it. I tinted the epoxy white so it looks just like the fiberglass gel coat, although it doesn't matter because everything will be painted anyway.

 

[Topo.Ranger]

If you can make this I will be interested in this for sure!! Looks ************!!

Have you been able to design this any further?

 

[jscherb]

Have you been able to design this any further?

You're asking about the "Retro Rhino" front clip project? Yes, I've got pretty much all of the design work done, including:

- How the front grille panel, grille and other components will be "selectively scaled" to retain the look of the original but scaled to fit the much smaller JK. I've got an original Rhino grille with all its components here for reference.

- The shape and dimensions of the new hood and how the mold master will be constructed. I've got an original Rhino FSJ hood here and a JK hood, they'll be sectioned and pieced back together to make the new mold master for the new smaller Rhino hood.

- How factory fenders will be modified to support the wider front grille, and how factory flares will be modified to serve as mold masters for the narrower flares that will be required due to the wider front.

- The design for the new cowl panel that will match the new raised center section of the hood.

- A small modification to the radiator core support for the wider grill and headlight spacing.

And in case you missed it, I posted some concept drawings of a JK Wagoneer back in November: http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...for-JK-factory-hardtops?p=1959511#post1959511

 

[Topo.Ranger]

You're asking about the "Retro Rhino" front clip project? Yes, I've got pretty much all of the design work done, including:

- How the front grille panel, grille and other components will be "selectively scaled" to retain the look of the original but scaled to fit the much smaller JK. I've got an original Rhino grille with all its components here for reference.

- The shape and dimensions of the new hood and how the mold master will be constructed. I've got an original Rhino FSJ hood here and a JK hood, they'll be sectioned and pieced back together to make the new mold master for the new smaller Rhino hood.

- How factory fenders will be modified to support the wider front grille, and how factory flares will be modified to serve as mold masters for the narrower flares that will be required due to the wider front.

- The design for the new cowl panel that will match the new raised center section of the hood.

- A small modification to the radiator core support for the wider grill and headlight spacing.

And in case you missed it, I posted some concept drawings of a JK Wagoneer back in November: http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...for-JK-factory-hardtops?p=1959511#post1959511

I did miss that. I do apologize about that! That looks awesome!! Just curious how much wider would the front be? have you thought of a ball park money figure for one of these front end set ups?

 

[Topo.Ranger]

will it look similar to this as far as the width and hood styling?

 

[jscherb]

will it look similar to this as far as the width and hood styling?

Yes the width would be the same hood styling would very similar but I plan to have the styling be slightly more retro... the Jeep designers did a great job modernizing the Rhino front end look, but I prefer something slightly closer to the original center grille (but scaled down). Like this printout...

I did miss that. I do apologize about that! That looks awesome!! Just curious how much wider would the front be? have you thought of a ball park money figure for one of these front end set ups?

The front of the hood would be about an inch narrower than the back of the hood.

I just design this stuff, I don't sell anything, so I haven't given any thought to pricing or even if it should be a commercial product. It's just something I'd like to build because I think it would be fun to build and cool to have on my Jeep. There's nothing special about the parts though, so I could imagine the hood could sell for what other JK fiberglass hoods sell for. The other parts I don't know what to suggest for a price comparison.

 

[Topo.Ranger]

Yes the width would be the same hood styling would very similar but I plan to have the styling be slightly more retro... the Jeep designers did a great job modernizing the Rhino front end look, but I prefer something slightly closer to the original center grille (but scaled down). Like this printout...

The front of the hood would be about an inch narrower than the back of the hood.

I just design this stuff, I don't sell anything, so I haven't given any thought to pricing or even if it should be a commercial product. It's just something I'd like to build because I think it would be fun to build and cool to have on my Jeep. There's nothing special about the parts though, so I could imagine the hood could sell for what other JK fiberglass hoods sell for. The other parts I don't know what to suggest for a price comparison.

Well if you every decide that you build an extra version of this i would love to buy it! I absolutely love that idea!

 

[jscherb]

I've been thinking I'd paint the hardtop in a two-color scheme, body color on the sides and a black roof (I'd wanted to do a white roof, but Heather's against that). Something like this:

Over the past week I've seen several JKs the same color as ours but with a color matched hardtop, and I really didn't like the look, so now I'm thinking maybe I should do a single color. I've tried to do some simulations of the factory Dark Khaki hardtop color (color code ZJ8). Some photos of that color I've found:

These two seem to be the same color as my JK:

I've "painted" the hardtop with colors from two of the photos above:

And this one is painted with a color sample I found on Paintscratch.com...

Hard to tell what it would really look like .

 

[jscherb]

Another look at the factory Dark Khaki color.

 

[JDaPP]

Paint simulation is hard to tell, but I think the dark khaki looks good on the photo of the jeep with the factory hard top/same color as you. I personally would go with the dark khaki.

 

[jscherb]

This one's called Desert Tan. I've inserted the paint supplier's color sample in the upper left of the image for comparison to my colorization job: