Building half doors

How I did my half door.



1. Start the cut at the back of the door, 2 inches in (photo 1), even with where the factory door folds in to the window. leave the window track in place.

Cut following a straight line down from the factory fold. It ended 2.5 inches in (photo 2) , and 9.25 inches (photo 3) up from the top fold on the door bottom. (photos misleading due to angle of door to the camera)

2. Cut the front on a line that parallels the front of the door edge 4 inches in. (photo 4) To a point 4.5 inches up from the top fold on the door bottom.

3. Cut a line that parallels the top fold on the bottom of the door at the 4.5 inches, back 16.5 inches from the front of the door.

4. Cut a line that parallels the top fold on the bottom of the door at 9.25 inches 17 inches in from the back of the door.

5. That should give you 6.5 inches for the angle where the door handle will go. (photo 11)

6. Cut (6x8.5) and folded (to 4x6.5) a piece of 16 gauge steel, and welded it into place for the angle. (photo 14, 15)

7. Cut (6x15) and folded (to 4x15) a piece of 20 gauge steel, and welded it into place for the arm rest. (photo 7, 16)

8. Cut (6x12.5) and fold (to 4x12.5) a piece of 20 gauge steel, and weld it into place below the door handle angle. (photo 6)

9. clamp a piece of steel to the front of the door. Mark for where to bend and or cut. (photo 8)

10. Cut a piece of .75 tubing to fit the window tracks. Bow the tubing to follow the bend in the window tracks for the front and rear. Weld the tubing into place. (photo 17), (I used a big rubber hammer)

11. Bend .5 inch lip on some 20 gage steel and fit to the gaps on the sides of the tubing. (I clamped the .5 lip to the tubing then marked the steel. Cut it then welded it into place.)

12. Cut a hole for the door handle. Use a 3/4x1/8x6 inch piece of steel bending it 1 inch from each end. (I drilled 3 holes, 2 for guides and one that I welded a .25 nut to run a bolt through the handle and pinch the handle onto the door. (photo 20, 21) The handles I used were from a Grimlin, but AMC used these a lot and Jeep used them on some TJ's and YJ's tail gates and some factory steel doors.

13. Reuse one of the latch rods, bend it to fit the door handle.

14. You can make a cup holder using a 3 inch PVC pipe cap and a 3x2.5 PVC pipe bushing. Cut a hole to let the bushing fit thur the door and glue the cap on from inside the door. (holds a 20 ounce pop bottle or a 12 ounce can really well.) (photo 12, 22)

15. Bondo and paint. (photo 18, 19)



If you have any questions let me know, I'll do what I can to help.

Daryl

nice writeup!

sweet just what i wanted to do for mine when i have the time to do it.

Puma297 said:

nice writeup!

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x2! :cheers:

Thanks, the write-up took longer than doing the doors. :dunno:

I apologize to those that waited on me to get this done.

Daryl

sweet, thanks for the write up, this helps out a ton with my half doors

you are my hero...........im going to do this right after i eat lunch!!!!

great write-up

got any more pics of the finished product?

But.....how do you close the window? :dunce:

J/K...Beautiful job. I've seen that shot of the red rig all over the place - on every 4x4 BB and list I've visited. Your famous, man! Congrats on a job well done.

Definatly a nice job. Thanks for the writeup. I'll be grabbing myself a set of doors as soon as I can to start this. How much did you pay for your doors?

XJ Dreamin' said:

But.....how do you close the window? :dunce:

J/K...Beautiful job. I've seen that shot of the red rig all over the place - on every 4x4 BB and list I've visited. Your famous, man! Congrats on a job well done.

Click to expand...

Spooky, I've lurked at a few other sites, but rarely post. Don't remember ever posting about the doors anywhere else?

But cool also.

98XJDMB said:

great write-up

got any more pics of the finished product?

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My online write up has more photos (New photos I put up today) 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34

Thanks

Daryl

Timmay said:

Definatly a nice job. Thanks for the writeup. I'll be grabbing myself a set of doors as soon as I can to start this. How much did you pay for your doors?

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You all are going to hate this.

$1.00 for both.

$36.00 with shipping.

Gotta love Ebay.

Here's the story.

The pass side door I bought off of Ebay. they guy started the auction one buck. 35 to ship. the door had a dent in it just in front of the door handle. So I guess that no one else bid on it for that reason. I really didn't care.

The drivers side came from a friend at a body shop, who also owns an XJ. He towed in a wrecked one that was left on the street too long. And after storing it for months, got the title for it as payment for towing and storage.

He kept it as a parts Jeep for him. I asked about the door, telling him what I wanted to do, He said take it, I'm not going to need it. (Freebie!)

Oh, it actually gets better, I sold the window motors, regulators, door handles, and such on Ebay, and made about 20 bucks from that.

So after buying the metal and such, I'm close to even.

Daryl

Nice job on the doors, I'm borrowing your cut design on mine. Kinda reminds me of the 99-up Ford F250 doors. Good job on the write up, sometimes explaining it,can be harder than doing it.

hackedxj said:

Good job on the write up, sometimes explaining it,can be harder than doing it.

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Thanks, your not joking there. I went thru many rewrites, and am still not sure that I said all that I wanted too.

So if anyone needs more info, my mailbox is always open.

Daryl

One more photo, and post 500!



Daryl

JEONLYEP said:

One more photo, and post 500!

Daryl

Click to expand...

Ahhhh good times on HC...

:cheers:

nice job on doors man!

JEONLYEP said:

Spooky, I've lurked at a few other sites, but rarely post. Don't remember ever posting about the doors anywhere else?

Daryl

Click to expand...

I know I've seen it more than once. When somebody mentions half-doors that shot is going to come up.

Hey! I was checkin' out the new pics and a thought occurred (yes, that sometimes happens to me, 'though I try to keep it to a minimum). You need to cut the rear doors! Your backseat passengers are sweltering behind that glass :laugh3: .

XJ Dreamin'
stock and un-cut...so far

To save room inside the Jeep, I built a hitch mounted door carrier. (much like a bike carrier.) It worked great on the 20 mile drive over to where my local Jeep club had a river clean up day.

I got there, put the half doors on. Then set the full doors and carrier below the dike. After 3 hours of cleaning up other peoples trash, I go back to get the doors and the carrier. The doors are there, but the carrier is gone!? WTF, It's so annoying. I'm glad they left the doors, and didn't break the windows, but still. Wish I had some photos of the carrier to show, but thought I'd put the idea out there for any of you that have half doors and a hitch.

Sooner or later I'll build another one, and get some photos of it.

Daryl

Sorry, had to vent a little also.

Man, that sucks! I trailered my Dad's 4wheeler from WI to Montrose CO a few years ago in my MJ trailer and when we hit the trails west of town, I parked the trailer by some high line poles and set the drop hitch in the trailer. When I came back at the end of the day, the trailer was there (which I was glad of) but the drop hitch was gone! Luckily one guy in the group had a similar drop hitch although with less drop, but it worked and then he gave it to me! Thanks Bill Van Tuyl. I've still got it. Jeff

Oh yeah, last year I had a nice 8.5 x 10 aluminum snowmobile trailer hooked to the truck and backed into a snow bank in MI for the weekend. Everything was fine at 3pm or so when we loaded our junk from staying in a cabin in the truck, but after we went for couple hour ride and came back to the truck, some asswipe stole the trailer!!! From the tracks, we could see that they loaded a sled on the trailer, unhooked it, wrestled it out of the snow bank and past my truck, hooked it to theirs and took off! They left an old rusty steel trailer upside down in the snowbank. Cops spent very little time on this case and the assholes now have a nice trailer. I hate crooks. I've got locks on everything now. Too bad they don't hardly work after ONE WI winter. Jeff