harrisonrmatt
Member
I'll be taking a page out of Jeff's (jscherb) book and incorporating a couple of his successful projects for my own use. These various projects are all sort of intertwined, and include a modular hardtop, barn door conversion, and an integrated roof rack.
For the modular hardtop and barn door, I will largely be mimicking Jeff's design. My skills and resources are not quite at Jeff's level, so expect some differentiation due to that. Some other quick highlights below:
Barn door - for any JK owner, you understand the nuisance of the separate step of lifting the glass each time you place or retrieve anything from the rear storage area. The goal here is to integrate the swing gate and upper window section as one, with the option to remove the upper window section completely. See Jeff's thread for all of the detail. I do not plan to include the rear wiper and defrost mechanisms.
Hardtop - converting the hardtop to modular was not exactly necessary for the barn door, but I generally prefer to drive without windows/door, but with the roof (some refer to this as stagecoach). It took almost a year for a hardtop to pop up on Craigslist or Facebook's Marketplace that was under $1,000. I ended up with a newer model white painted hardtop that had some non-structural scuffs and damage, and black freedom panels for $200. My Jeep is white, and most of the top's paint is in good condition, so I will try my hand at refurbishing the paint (and freedom panels) back to white. I have some ideas about how the rear window panels can be made to quick release, but I am not far along in the process to pursue the design for those just yet. I am also tossing around different ideas for converting the rear side panels to storage, or incorporating a rack ladder, etc.
Rack - I chose to include a rack for two reasons. First, I intend to run the hardtop with just the top panel only (no side or back panels) and to do so, I needed to find a way to anchor the rear of the top to the vehicle. Second, the rear storage area of the JKU is pretty limited, and the cost is not very prohibitive to build up an aluminum rack. The primary goal here is strong and light, with minimal use of steel. I will be using ACE Engineering's roof rack bracket system, which attach to the Jeep's roll bar and integrate with the roof. On the topside, I plan to build a rack from 80/20 aluminum. ACE's rack mounts are extremely stout and are rated for something like 700 lbs. I will never have nearly that much weight up there (and I will be using aluminum for the rack itself), but it's nice to know they are overbuilt for my purposes.
I expect the final cost of materials and parts to come in around $1,500.
I have very little experience in working with fiberglass and metal, so I will share any insight as I learn.
I have pretty limited free time these days, so this will be a very slow moving project, unfortunately. I will report back with updates as I make progress. In the meantime, let me know if there are any questions.
For now, just a few pics of the top and some progress with the rear upper barn door panel.
For the modular hardtop and barn door, I will largely be mimicking Jeff's design. My skills and resources are not quite at Jeff's level, so expect some differentiation due to that. Some other quick highlights below:
Barn door - for any JK owner, you understand the nuisance of the separate step of lifting the glass each time you place or retrieve anything from the rear storage area. The goal here is to integrate the swing gate and upper window section as one, with the option to remove the upper window section completely. See Jeff's thread for all of the detail. I do not plan to include the rear wiper and defrost mechanisms.
Hardtop - converting the hardtop to modular was not exactly necessary for the barn door, but I generally prefer to drive without windows/door, but with the roof (some refer to this as stagecoach). It took almost a year for a hardtop to pop up on Craigslist or Facebook's Marketplace that was under $1,000. I ended up with a newer model white painted hardtop that had some non-structural scuffs and damage, and black freedom panels for $200. My Jeep is white, and most of the top's paint is in good condition, so I will try my hand at refurbishing the paint (and freedom panels) back to white. I have some ideas about how the rear window panels can be made to quick release, but I am not far along in the process to pursue the design for those just yet. I am also tossing around different ideas for converting the rear side panels to storage, or incorporating a rack ladder, etc.
Rack - I chose to include a rack for two reasons. First, I intend to run the hardtop with just the top panel only (no side or back panels) and to do so, I needed to find a way to anchor the rear of the top to the vehicle. Second, the rear storage area of the JKU is pretty limited, and the cost is not very prohibitive to build up an aluminum rack. The primary goal here is strong and light, with minimal use of steel. I will be using ACE Engineering's roof rack bracket system, which attach to the Jeep's roll bar and integrate with the roof. On the topside, I plan to build a rack from 80/20 aluminum. ACE's rack mounts are extremely stout and are rated for something like 700 lbs. I will never have nearly that much weight up there (and I will be using aluminum for the rack itself), but it's nice to know they are overbuilt for my purposes.
I expect the final cost of materials and parts to come in around $1,500.
I have very little experience in working with fiberglass and metal, so I will share any insight as I learn.
I have pretty limited free time these days, so this will be a very slow moving project, unfortunately. I will report back with updates as I make progress. In the meantime, let me know if there are any questions.
For now, just a few pics of the top and some progress with the rear upper barn door panel.
