Hey Jeff,
I've followed your various projects for a long time, and I hope you are still monitoring this thread...
I'm starting to think more and more about a barn door for a JK Hard top.
How hard do you think it would be to move the hinges to the side and have the glass open and close with the tailgate?
Thanks and keep up the great projects!
-Dan
Dan,
Here's a photo showing how I did the barn door upper on the Safari Cab/Safari Overland Camper top. I used "stakes" that bolt to the factory tailgate and to the barn door upper to secure both together into a single unit.
Unfortunately this method of attaching the barn door won't work with the JK factory hardtop liftgate, because the liftgate is all glass - there's nothing to bolt the stakes to, and you can't drill holes in the the tempered glass.
A while back I did a design for a JK Safari Cab, and as part of that design I was planning to do either a barn door or ambulance doors that would also work with the factory hardtop. Below are drawings of both types of doors with the factory hardtop.
The barn door would be a pretty straightforward project and would be done exactly like the LJ/TJ Safari Cab barn door pictured above - it would attach to the factory tailgate.
The ambulance doors would be a bit more difficult because of the hardware involved and the fact that the doors would completely replace the tailgate.
BTW in 2010 (I think) Jeep went and made this project more difficult to do with the factory hardtop - on the hardtops from that year and later the liftgate is wider than the tailgate. Prior to that year they're the same width, which makes the barn door project pretty easy for the earlier JK hardtops.
