Old doors, new XJ?

Ok... I need some help/advice/direction. My XJ is a 2000 4 dr sport. Friends of mine recently purchased a wrecked 1996 XJ 4 dr. I want to take the doors off of the 96(the doors survived the wreck unharmed), cut them to half doors and put them on my XJ. The big problem is, the hinges on them are different than the hinges on mine. Is there any SAFE way to fab up something so that I could use the 96 doors on mine?

Any directional support or help would be greatly appriciated.

Thanks!

Bigger problem is that the strikers are different and in different locations.

^ lol at this

you can swap the hinge plates on the doors.

Tacedaddy said:

^ lol at this

Click to expand...

Why? The doors have different latches which use different strikers. The older doors use a post-type striker and the newer models use a loop-type striker. And the loop-type striker is located lower on the b-pillar than the post-type striker.

So the OP would have to figure out a way to put a newer latch on an older door AND move it down. Would be easier to wait and locate some newer doors to cut up.

If you wanted to switch them, PERMANANTLY, why not just remount the early style striker? as if doing a late model door swap, but opposite.

To use both sets of doors... as johnnyc has mentioned... good luck with that, as you'll need to adapt a old style door to use new style latches/striker. Nothings impossible, but this is one step beyond what most people do to mount late model doors on their early models.

The reason I was thinking about it is I'm going to take the donor doors, cut them and make half doors out of them. I'm not too worried about strikers. I'm going to use heavy duty gate latches to secure the doors close.