Barn Door for JK factory hardtops

[Comanche Scott]

templates are even better

Perfect! :victory:

 

[jscherb]

I finished the initial fitting of the headliner panels this morning. I'll cover the panels with the headliner fabric after painting the roof panel. Sitting on one of the panels in the photo of the front of the roof is a sample of the headliner fabric, and a sample of the base color paint I'll use to tint the Raptor bedliner that'll be shot around the Alpine windows - there won't be headliner fabric in that area, but the bedliner color with match the headliner pretty well.

That being finished for now, I started the paint process this afternoon, shooting primer on the inside of the roof. Since the windshield header will be exposed when finished, it'll be shot in gray base coat/matte clear. I'll finish up the windshield header tomorrow and tint and shoot the bedliner on the rest of the visible areas (not under where the headliner will go) on Sunday.

 

[jscherb]

Today I'm finishing the paint work on the inside of the roof. I tinted and shot the Raptor bedliner first thing this morning, and when it's cured enough to the point that I can mask it I'll shoot the header with base color/matte clear.

The roof masked for shooting the Raptor:

This next shot was taken after the Raptor has been shot and the masking was pulled off. The color I tinted the Raptor happens to be fairly close to the color of the epoxy primer I shot yesterday; the Raptor is tinted to match the headliner fabric.

A close-up shot of the Raptor on the Alpine window area and nearby roof rib. It's a nice way to give the rough inside of a fiberglass part a finished look.

After I shoot the header area, I'll let everything cure for the rest of the weekend and on Monday I'll flip the roof over and start the steps to paint the exterior.

 

[jscherb]

My goal in tinting the Raptor bedliner was to match the color of the headliner fabric I'll be using, and I also chose bedliner because it has some texture and hopefully the texture of the Raptor would look good with the texture of the headliner fabric. Here are two comparison shots, I did two because color matches often look different in different lighting so one of these photos was shot with a flash and the other without. I couldn't be happier with how the Raptor color and texture turned out.

 

[Comanche Scott]

Looks good Jeff.
My buddy has used Raptor, tinted to match the vehicle color. It takes a bit of artistic interpretation to really get it right. You did a great job on that. :beer:

 

[jscherb]

Looks good Jeff.
My buddy has used Raptor, tinted to match the vehicle color. It takes a bit of artistic interpretation to really get it right. You did a great job on that. :beer:

Thank you. I left the headliner fabric sample with my friends at Elmira Auto Paint the other day and asked them to match it in PPG Omni base coat. When I went to pick up the mixed paint yesterday it was very nice, but I asked them to lighten it slightly for a better match. They were happy to oblige, and I'm very happy with the final match.

 

[jscherb]

Back when I was making up the main wiring harness for the inside of the hardtop, I was thinking I'd do a fairly dark headliner, so when I made the overhead console mount and wired up the console I wrapped the mount in black vinyl. Now that I'm going with a lighter headliner, the black vinyl just won't look right, so a quick trip to Joann Fabrics got me a much nicer dark gray color.

 

[jscherb]

This morning I shot the outside of the roof panel with epoxy primer/sealer. The next step is high-build primer, which I'll shoot this afternoon.

Tomorrow I'll block sand the high-build, and if that goes according to plan I'll also shoot the color and matte clear tomorrow, which will complete the paint process.

 

[jscherb]

I shot the color and matte clear on the roof panel today, so that completes the painting process - all of the JK Safari Cab parts are now in final finish inside and out.

And I posted this photo a week or so ago when I finished painting the other parts, but I'll include it here to show all the painted parts together in one post...

What's next: I'll let the finish cure for a couple of days and then I'll assemble all of the bits and pieces into the roof - install the Alpine windows, roof rack, third brake light, roof wiring harness and headliner. Once that's done the only other thing that remains before the finished Safari Cab can be installed on the Jeep are the windows, I'm just waiting on the glass place to get them cut and tempered.

 

[jscherb]

The matte clear has cured enough to handle so I've pulled off all the masking and moved the roof to another garage bay so I can clean up the mess from painting. The clear has cured into a very uniform level of matte, I'm really happy with it. It's a very nice product.

 

[Comanche Scott]

Looks great. From all I have read (no first hand experience here), the mat clear coat, and satin paints can be very difficult to get a nice even finish. So that is very impressive! :beer:
Can't wait to see it with all the tinted glass and installed on the Jeep. :beer:
After all the work you've done (and it is very impressive), my favorite part is probably one of the simpler things you did, which is the electric opening rear windows. That is just such a cool "OEM" touch.
Pretty awesome Jeff.

 

[jscherb]

Looks great. From all I have read (no first hand experience here), the mat clear coat, and satin paints can be very difficult to get a nice even finish. So that is very impressive! :beer:
Can't wait to see it with all the tinted glass and installed on the Jeep. :beer:
After all the work you've done (and it is very impressive), my favorite part is probably one of the simpler things you did, which is the electric opening rear windows. That is just such a cool "OEM" touch.
Pretty awesome Jeff.

Thank you very much.

The key to a consistent matte/satin finish is applying the paint in very even wet coats, so it all comes down to spray gun settings and technique. You want a fairly wide fan out and enough paint delivery so that at a speed of movement comfortable to you the paint goes down in a wet coat. You want to keep the gun perpendicular to the surface, keep it a constant distance away, and move at a constant speed, so no "swinging the gun back and forth", everything is a linear motion as if the gun were on rails above the surface. Also overlap each pass 50% to ensure even coverage. With a little practice it starts to come naturally.

I like the power vent windows too . I hadn't originally planned them but someone posted "it would be really cool if those vent windows were powered..." and I thought I was a great idea so I did it. Lots of the features in my projects start as suggestions from people following my threads, that's part of the reason I post so much detail - so people have lots to comment on and give me good ideas .

I plan to make a few minor tweaks to the vent window motor brackets, so I might not make them part of the initial install, but the wiring and switches will be installed so the motors can be added in a few minutes as soon as I get the bracket tweaks done.

 

[jscherb]

Got the Alpine windows, roof rack and third brake light installed this morning.

Next I'll flip the roof over and install the wiring harness, overhead console and headliner panels.

 

[jscherb]

Comparing an image of the hardtop on the Jeep that I colorized and the actual roof...

 

[Comanche Scott]

Amazingly close.
Needs some "color restore" on the rack. What's that stuff called "Re-nuz-it", or something like that?
According to the commercial on TV, you'll be able to go through a hundred car washes before it starts to fade again...

Have you thought about a basket for the rack yet?
When I had the WJ, I was going to make brackets so the basket would sit down almost on top of the roof itself, for a lower profile.