Barn Door for JK factory hardtops

[Bobzdar]

Oh, I know. But I wouldn't do that for the same reason I won't do it on my current JK: lack of skill and fear of messing it up! My point is that Jeep could have redesigned the top to be modular from the factory. If it was an upgrade over the standard hardtop, I would tick that option box.



Same point as above. I just think that if Jeep made it a feature from the factory, it would solve a problem that annoys some (many?) of their customers. I'd be more inclined to trade up to the JL if there were some smart upgrades that I think I would appreciate every day (aside from those improvements already made). Perhaps they're saving some of those added features in their back pockets to release in the future to keep the JL fresh over the next 10-12 years and keep people buying new.



If only! Maybe Jeep's position is to leave it to the aftermarket industry. It's part of the "Jeep Thing" anyways.

The one touch soft top is essentially a modular top in that vein. If the adoption rate becomes fairly high on that, I'd expect stuff to start popping up to replace the windows with sliders or shelves and to make the rear window (easily) removable.

 

[jscherb]

The one touch soft top is essentially a modular top in that vein. If the adoption rate becomes fairly high on that, I'd expect stuff to start popping up to replace the windows with sliders or shelves and to make the rear window (easily) removable.

Slider windows kits (and likely cargo window kits as well) will be available for the JL shortly, I wrote about that two weeks ago.

If I had access to a one touch top I'd create a roll-up soft side kit for it like the ones I've done for my other Jeeps. Seems like that would be something people with that top would want to have since storing the removed hard sides while on the road is difficult - roll up soft sides allow the sides to be open or closed at will with no storage issue.

 

[Bobzdar]

Slider windows kits (and likely cargo window kits as well) will be available for the JL shortly, I wrote about that two weeks ago.

If I had access to a one touch top I'd create a roll-up soft side kit for it like the ones I've done for my other Jeeps. Seems like that would be something people with that top would want to have since storing the removed hard sides while on the road is difficult - roll up soft sides allow the sides to be open or closed at will with no storage issue.

Yup, that'd be way better than trying to store a whole hard top in the summer - just swap the side windows in summer and put the hard windows back in winter. That'd almost make separate hard and soft tops obsolete.

 

[jscherb]

Yup, that'd be way better than trying to store a whole hard top in the summer - just swap the side windows in summer and put the hard windows back in winter. That'd almost make separate hard and soft tops obsolete.

For me it does make the soft top obsolete, for two reasons - first, I don't like the sun overhead so I like having the roof in place and second, since the hard roof is in place I can still use the rack for the roof top tent or cargo. If I had a soft top I would have to have one of those huge and awkward exocage style racks instead of the simple rack I've got.

 

[jscherb]

I never thought that the kind of SUV's that come with fancy hard spare covers regularly get into situations where they'll need self recovery, but someone must think they might need some tools to get unstuck... this morning I spotted a hard spare cover with a built-in place to store a shovel.

But I suppose on the mountain roads where this SUV might be traveling a shovel could come in handy to deal with the random rockslide or other obstacle. I took this photo this morning in Kathmandu, Nepal - I've never seen a hard spare cover with built-in shovel before and thought some people might find it as curious as I do.

 

[jscherb]

Unlike India, where Jeeps are not uncommon (well, maybe not Wranglers, but there are lots of Compasses), I've seen no Jeeps (capital J) at all in Nepal. There are plenty of Mahindra jeeps - among others, the Nepalese Army uses them. Here are a few...

This one is parked at the Royal Palace in Durbar Square in Kathmandu, the Army guards the palace and the soldiers arrive in jeeps.

I have seen a bunch of Land Rovers on the road, mostly Series and Defenders. This series example is also at the palace, I'm told the king used it in his trips to India because due to Nepali roads he needed a "very strong vehicle" .

 

[jscherb]

Mahindra jeep pickups and tray backs are very popular here in Nepal.

Here's one with a "covered wagon" style cover on it. The grille has a plastic overlay on it but underneath it's a CJ-style grille.

The CJ-style grille versions are less common than the "Bolero" front clip like on this pickup, which also has a covered wagon top. The cab on this one is a slightly extended model.

The covered wagon tops are very common, more have them than not but here's a tray truck without a covered wagon top. Also an extended cab model.

 

[jscherb]

We spent this morning off-roading in the Nepal jungle looking for rare one-horned Indian Rhinos. There were several choices of off-road transportation available - first was a Mahindra tray back truck converted with seats on the back to carry a bunch of people. No. Second was a Maruti Gypsy (a LWD Suzuki Samurai made in India). No. Several converted pickups from either Toyota or Tata (Indian company, parent of Jaguar/Land Rover). Nope. We chose a more traditional form of off-road transportation for this part of the world - the Indian Elephant. Elisa is a 25 year old female (I guess that makes her a 1994 model?). She's little smaller than her male counterparts, but plenty big enough to carry the two of us plus a mahout (driver).

While cruising through the jungle on Elisa I did a little comparison between her and a Jeep.

Obstacle Capability. An elephant is like one of those newer vehicles with traction control systems designed for specific terrain, only smarter. When she comes up to an obstacle, she pauses and studies it for a while, tests her footing, and step by step conquers the obstacle with no false steps or slippage. Even with the best traction control system, I wouldn't drive a Jeep through some of the mud and up and down the riverbanks we did today, so I'll give her the win on this one.

Passenger comfort. A Jeep can be pretty rough on the trail, especially for passengers who aren't holding on to the steering wheel. But I think I'll still give the Jeep the win on this one. Passengers on an elephant (except for the mahout, who rides on the elephant's neck) ride in a howdah, which is a flat platform on the elephant's back with rails around the edges so you don't fall off. It's smaller then a Jeep cockpit and doesn't have comfy seats like a Jeep, so the Jeep wins.

Maneuverability. Elephant wins hands down. If you take the wrong line over an obstacle in a Jeep and fail, you usually have to back down and try a different line. The elephant rarely takes the wrong line, and if she decides on a better line half way up she can just step sideways. Can't do that in a Jeep. Win for the elephant.

Water crossings. We crossed a river twice today, in both spots probably deep enough to swamp the Jeep and also in both cases the river banks were steep enough to cause problems for the Jeep's approach and departure angles (not to mention the slippery mud on the bank). The elephant tests the depth as she crosses, and if necessary is a good swimmer (luckily we didn't need this capability today!). Definite win for the elephant.

Fuel economy. Hard to compare, although an adult elephant eats about 300 lbs. of fodder a day and drinks about 100 liters of water. You might think that the Jeep wins on this one, but Elisa eats as she travels, grabbing at grasses and leaves she finds yummy, so it's not much trouble. Drinks from rivers she crosses too. The solid and gaseous emissions from the elephant are pretty large, but I'll still give the elephant the win on this one even though occasionally if she finds something really tempting she'll stop to graze for a while in spite of the mahout's urging her to keep moving.

Trail requirements. Pretty much no special requirements for the elephant while the Jeep will need about 6' clear space to get through somewhere. She pushes small trees aside and slides through gaps that a Jeep could never negotiate. Really doesn't need a prepared trail, she just goes where the mahout tells her (assuming she agrees).

Noise level. Another win for the elephant because there's no engine noise, although there can be a lot of branches and sticks cracking and crashing.

Cargo Capacity. I'll rate this one a tie. The elephant can probably carry more weight and still navigate an obstacle than a Jeep can, but space is limited in the howdah so unless you've got a special harness on her the amount of stuff she can carry might be limited.

On-Road Performance. Gotta give the Jeep the win on this one. Think of the elephant as being permanently in low range and you'll know how fast she'll be on the road. Can't get home from the trail quickly on an elephant.

Oh, BTW, we were successful in spotting and shooting a Rhino (with my camera!). I believe there are less than 2000 of these left in the wild, about 1/3 of them in Nepal and 2/3 in Assam (an Indian state not far from Nepal).

 

[azken]

^^^^^ entertaining..thanks!

 

[jscherb]

In India (and other countries in Asia) there are lots of things you can have custom made to your specifications, and often very affordably. There are lots of custom box shops, here's a shop in Kathmandu, Nepal.

The person in the shop is laying out a new box on a large piece of sheet metal.

I can think of a bunch of uses for boxes like this - boxes for the cargo area of a soft top Jeep, cargo boxes for roof racks or over-the-spare racks or hitch racks, tongue boxes for trailers, etc.

The box on top of the two in the right foreground looks like a good size for a trunk box in the back of a JKU. We asked the price, it was 2500 Nepali Rupees. At the current exchange rate, that's $22.14.

These are on the other side of the world from the US and it would cost a bit to bring one back home, but every time I pass one of these shops I think about the possibilities.

 

[jscherb]

A while back I designed and built Overhead/Swing Down Molle panels for my JKU and LJ; they've been in my Jeeps for over a year now and they've performed great. I posted about that project here.

No matter how many times I say that I don't sell anything I still regularly get messages from people asking me if I'll sell them an Overhead Molle (or something else I've designed and built). Sorry, no, I don't sell anything, I just design this stuff for my own use because I usually can't find things on the market that meet my needs.

MORryde picked up the Overhead Molle design a while back and it's been available at Retrofit Offroad for a while now. This morning I got an email from MORryde telling me it's now available at Quadratec. MORryde and Quadratec have just teamed up on many of the MORryde products. https://www.quadratec.com/brand/morryde

 

[Presto88]

I was one of the first people to order that Swing Down panel and I have to say that it's just been great! It was exactly what I needed to store my MaxTrax's and shovel inside the Jeep. Thanks for doing such a good job on (the design of) it, Jeff!

 

[jscherb]

I was one of the first people to order that Swing Down panel and I have to say that it's just been great! It was exactly what I needed to store my MaxTrax's and shovel inside the Jeep. Thanks for doing such a good job on (the design of) it, Jeff!

Jim,
Thanks for the nice comments, it's always great to hear that people find the things that I design useful. Had to go back and look at your photo again, really looks like a great use of the Overhead Rack...

 

[jscherb]

Another box shop in Kathmandu. On the floor inside are some of the tools, looks like this guy may be taking nap between working on boxes. This shop offers painted boxes, and there are some much smaller boxes on the table. Too bad these are so far from the US.

 

[jscherb]

Double-cab Jeep pickups are a relatively new thing here in the US but they've been available on the other side of the world for at least 30 years. This is a Mahindra "Utiliti" in the service of the Nepal Red Cross, it's probably an early 90's model. It's got a goofy grille overlay but there is a CJ style grille underneath:

The later models are called the "Bolero Camper" but they have nothing to do with camping as far as I can tell. Many of them also have covered wagon tops on the pickup beds. Roof racks on the double cab roof are also very common. These later models have the "Bolero" front sheet metal in common with the other current models.

Seems to me that it would be useful to have a covered wagon top for a Gladiator like those in the photos above. Here's a photo-edit, I took the "covered wagon" top off the photo above and adapted it to a photo of a Gladiator...

The Bolero Camper is very popular in India, Nepal and other South Asian countries. It's also popular in South Africa where several companies offer fiberglass and metal caps for the pickup bed.