Unibody Strength Question

Hello all,
This winter I plan to take my cherokee and do a little modifying. Plans are to chop the upper rear quarter. Move the liftgate , along with @2" of the support structure that the hinges are mounted on and move it all forward to the C pillar. Mig weld the support struture to the existing body; across the top and down the sides. Permanently attach the liftgate into position(sides and especially bottom) yet retaining the wiper and heated window along with the licence plate lamp and all.

After all this dettaching and reattaching do most feel that I will still need some sort of support beam @the upper rear liftgate? I feel that the remaing (now bedside) panels can be sufficiently supported from the bottom and rear corners so that a rollbar is not needed from the top of the C pillar supported center of the vehicle to the lower D pillar area.

Thanks in adavnce to all

Bill

Come on all you fab guys ; speak up. I'm just a parts man.

You do realize that the rear hatch is fiberglass, right?

You will need extra support. Those of us who have done this have added quite a bit of extra support, and we have all done it in different ways. Think it through...do more rather than less.....and have fun.

BTW, no one has actually added the rear hatch to the back....I think. I don't know what stryker did, Beezil fabbed his own back wall, Borton and I used the back cab of a Commanche, and Paul left his open.

link to pics of my project

Thanks,
I did realize that the hatch is glass. Thats actually the easy part for me since I've done 'glass work in the past. I was just wondering about the fact that except for the chop, it would appear to have all the parts there. No problem however; I'll just add a structual membered rollbar to the assembly.

BTW, didn't I already see your jeep in a article in a magazine recently? Looks mighty familiar.

Nice pics of your process. I'm sure they will help me much. Thanks!!

Bill

I was just thinking about something like that today. But I w`s w>hdering if anyone h`s tr`ed to ¤o it and sthll <ake the entire gate/hatch area open up. I thought about chopping mine over the wintdr bt not sure how üuch time I villhavd ovtv the winter.

I believe Stryker did reuse the fiberglass hatch on the D_illinger, but I'm not sure. Unfortunately, the D_illinger succombed to the inevitable result of driving with leaking fuel injectors, and is no longer with us ...

Eagle said:

I believe Stryker did reuse the fiberglass hatch on the D_illinger, but I'm not sure. Unfortunately, the D_illinger succombed to the inevitable result of driving with leaking fuel injectors, and is no longer with us ...

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, fortunately...potato, pot'ato, tomato, toma'to....

Hubcaps.

Unibody Strength Question and more.....

After doing a little study of the design when my son came home last night, I feel that I can put a roll bar inside the opening of the liftgate, and since the 'gate is fiberglass, with a little trimmimg and re-glassing, I CAN sucessfully make the liftgate still open and function normally.

Now on to another question on the same vehicle. I'm NOT a rock crawler. I have nothing against it, but I'm more of a beach fisherman and can still drive on the beach to my favorite fishing holeand don't worry about a little extra overhang in the rear. I found the tailgate that I was looking for off a comanche along with a decent bed as well. Now I know that with the standard configuration wheelbase, I couldn't add the whole bed to the cherokee like that burgandy photochop picture I found floating around; but could I add a foot or 2 to the rear? I don't want it to stick waaaaaaaay out over the rear, but I feel a foot or so would make it even more interesting. I'll know more today when I go to the lot to see it better and arrange a purchase of maybe the whole vehicle.

Bill