Barn Door for JK factory hardtops
- Thread starter jscherb
- Start date
jscherb
Expedition Leader
Just last week at the EJS Vendor Expo I talked with several people about the barn door, including the editor of a jeep/offroad magazine - we were trying to decide if we thought there would be enough interest in the barn door to turn it into a commercial product. The editor was saying he really couldn't say because there really isn't any product even remotely similar to help determine what the market demand might be - the barn door is in a category all it's own.
My view is that there wouldn't be enough demand for it to make it worthwhile to go to the trouble of commercializing it.
I've got the molds, all of the engineering is done (wiring, wiper, mounting to the tailgate, etc.), and the two prototypes I have made do work very well, but at least for now I don't plan to mold any more.
If a company/person is interested in the idea of turning the barn door into a commercial product, I'll be happy to discuss it with them but I'm not trying to find a company for it at this point.
Comanche Scott
Expedition Leader
Well, the cool side to all of this is:
1). You have a very unique, and useful top to match the LJ
2). All the detail you've done in this thread may prompt someone else to tackle a difficult but fun project. Like Bamajeep is doing with his camper.
Seeing big projects / builds come to fruition is motivational.
Hat's off to you Jeff. :beer:
1). You have a very unique, and useful top to match the LJ
2). All the detail you've done in this thread may prompt someone else to tackle a difficult but fun project. Like Bamajeep is doing with his camper.
Seeing big projects / builds come to fruition is motivational.
Hat's off to you Jeff. :beer:
Haf-E
Expedition Leader
Ursa Minor should offer it for their pop-top as often they are having to buy a factory hatch window since many customers start with a soft top. The hatch window also gets in the way with rear access to the poptop, in my opinion.
Maybe talk with them? They already do composites and market to JKU owners.
Maybe talk with them? They already do composites and market to JKU owners.
jscherb
Expedition Leader
Early in this thread I posted a concept drawing I did showing the barn door with an Ursa Minor, to me it seems like they go together perfectly. I would think a swing-up hatch would be much less convenient than the barn door for camper use.
It should be possible for a basic barn door to be made for roughly the same cost as a replacement liftgate glass, and adding the wiper shouldn't really cost any more than adding a factory wiper to the factory liftgate.
jscherb
Expedition Leader
Between other projects and a three-week off-road trip to Easter Jeep Safari Moab, Death Valley and the Mojave Desert I haven't had much time to work on finishing the JK Safari Cab lately, but I'll be back to it very soon.
One of the projects that has taken priority is my slider window project for factory hardtops. The idea is to produce a slider window kit than can replace the glued-in-place side windows in the factory hardtop.
Today I'm making a mold for a special JK Safari Cab side panel - here's a photo of the mold master, it's a modular Safari Cab side panel but with a factory window mounting surface. A piece of factory bonded glass would glue right in place on this panel just like on the factory hardtop, but the reason for making the mold is so I can make a few test panels for installing the sliders. These test panels will replicate the installation in the factory hardtop, but since it's cheap and easy to make these panels I can do the first slider install tests on these instead of a real hardtop.
Once this mold is made I'll make a few panels and send one to the window company for them to use as a template for making the prototype slider window frames.
One of the projects that has taken priority is my slider window project for factory hardtops. The idea is to produce a slider window kit than can replace the glued-in-place side windows in the factory hardtop.
Today I'm making a mold for a special JK Safari Cab side panel - here's a photo of the mold master, it's a modular Safari Cab side panel but with a factory window mounting surface. A piece of factory bonded glass would glue right in place on this panel just like on the factory hardtop, but the reason for making the mold is so I can make a few test panels for installing the sliders. These test panels will replicate the installation in the factory hardtop, but since it's cheap and easy to make these panels I can do the first slider install tests on these instead of a real hardtop.
Once this mold is made I'll make a few panels and send one to the window company for them to use as a template for making the prototype slider window frames.
jscherb
Expedition Leader
At one gas stop someone asked me what year my CJ was - that happens all the time.
On the trail someone saw it and said "So you put a CJ grille on an LJ, huh? I've been thinking of doing that too." I had to tell him there's a lot more to it than just swapping the CJ sheet metal in place of the TJ sheet metal, he seems to have thought the CJ hood, fenders, grille, etc. would just bolt right up and look fine.
At another stop, someone asked me if I made my hardtop or bought it. Apparently he knew of the LJ Safari Cab project and that it's now available through Gr8Tops and that was his cute way of asking if I were me.
My wife doesn't like driving my Jeeps (especially the Retro Wrangler pickup) because any time you stop somewhere someone is likely to come up to you and start asking questions. It gets to me sometimes too, all week at Moab I left the LJ in the hotel parking lot in the evenings and walked downtown for dinner
.
Comanche Scott
Expedition Leader
At one gas stop someone asked me what year my CJ was - that happens all the time.
On the trail someone saw it and said "So you put a CJ grille on an LJ, huh? I've been thinking of doing that too." I had to tell him there's a lot more to it than just swapping the CJ sheet metal in place of the TJ sheet metal, he seems to have thought the CJ hood, fenders, grille, etc. would just bolt right up and look fine.
At another stop, someone asked me if I made my hardtop or bought it. Apparently he knew of the LJ Safari Cab project and that it's now available through Gr8Tops and that was his cute way of asking if I were me.
My wife doesn't like driving my Jeeps (especially the Retro Wrangler pickup) because any time you stop somewhere someone is likely to come up to you and start asking questions. It gets to me sometimes too, all week at Moab I left the LJ in the hotel parking lot in the evenings and walked downtown for dinner
I learned decades ago not to go anywhere in a classic/exotic unless there is plenty of time. People always have questions, or stories about vehicles they've had or seen.
Personally I really enjoy this, because they get a gleam of happiness in their eye.
For the rest of the time I drive a Prius. Nobody asks about it. I can move about the country in complete anonymity ... rofl!
jscherb
Expedition Leader
I've experimented with a number of hatch/gullwing ideas over the course of this project, and it would be easy to implement one of them, but the company that's asked me to do the slider retrofit kit for factory hardtops thinks that the most popular window style would be a slider. Wouldn't be any extra work to do a hatch version once the slider is done, so maybe if they see enough demand they'll do one. I'd guess they'd leave a solar panel up to the user though.
The hatch could be installed to hinge down as a table, or hinge up as a gullwing.
If I get the time, I may make molds for a fiberglass compartment like this cardboard mockup...
jscherb
Expedition Leader
Here's a look at the window frame template I plan to send over to the window manufacturer. I've made up the template using the minimum radius available in their standard window frames to keep these windows very affordable.
Here it is edited to be black and to give a better idea of what the corners might look like when the frame is installed:
For comparison, here's a factory glass with the corners that were cut off the template after tracing the glass, this shows the difference between the factory glass and the slider window frame.
Here it is edited to be black and to give a better idea of what the corners might look like when the frame is installed:
For comparison, here's a factory glass with the corners that were cut off the template after tracing the glass, this shows the difference between the factory glass and the slider window frame.
KevinsMap
Adventurer
As a great admirer of your work (and a professional product design consultant myself, though in a very different field
, I will pitch in 2cents worth. Only my opinion.I quoted you specifically to call out what I would call your only weakness in this particular conceptual design. Most aftermarket windows look like, well, just that; generic products grafted on to a design they were never intended to complement or match. This product you intend is for a very specific design, and (as you well know) a very strong design. The Jeep JKU. In my opinion, it should reflect that successful design as closely as possible. Even though fewer people will find the price attractive. As important as is affordability, a well designed product such as you intend will have no competition and can have a price-point accordingly. Reasonable but a bit "pricey" perhaps, not lowest cost.
I call your attention to the windows used by another very admirable product, Ursa Minor. This is for comparison, to what I would recommend as the target for a "next best" example, to which your product would be aesthetically as well as functionally superior. Ursa Minor has an aftermarket window available for their JKU J30 camper... and that window looks aftermarket. Very useful, very functional, and built without the demands of complex curves. But the glazed area is somewhat undersized, and the frame style not truly of-a-piece with the J30 and JKU design as a whole. A good product, if I need to say it again ;-) But it could be better, in my opinion.
I think you can do better.
jscherb
Expedition Leader
As a great admirer of your work (and a professional product design consultant myself, though in a very different field
I think you can do better.
Thanks for the input. I've discussed the aesthetics vs. price question at length with the company that's asked me to do this project for them. The company believes that a very affordable, high quality, functional opening window solution will sell well enough to make the project worthwhile. We have discussed what it would take to manufacture an opening window with a totally factory appearance (which I could certainly design for them) and have decided that the cost involved in custom tooling would price the kit out of the reach and interest of the majority of Jeep owners. That's assuming we could get a quality window company to commit to the custom tooling given the very small market potential for a high-priced product, which is doubtful.
By affordable, I'm talking in the neighborhood of $350 per pair of windows - that's for a complete kit including 2 windows and everything needed to do the installation. The Ursa Minor windows you linked to cost $350 each, so they're twice the cost of what I'm working on.
So far this company's market research indicates enough positive interest in the design and price point to go the the next step, which is working with a quality window company to get first prototypes made for testing. They have had a few people say they wouldn't be interested unless the aesthetics of the window are such that the installation looks like it came from the factory, but far more people have said they like the price and the functionality and are looking forward to being able to purchase the kit. Also, most of the interest has been in slider windows, but the base design work that's being done for this project is applicable to swing-up windows, gull-wing cargo hatches, etc., so it may be that other types of windows would also come out of the project.
Whether or not the company decides to take the product into production I can't say for sure yet. The next step is getting prototypes made, testing them, and seeing what the reaction is.