Barn Door for JK factory hardtops

[OregonJKU]

Hi Jeff, I realize you're traveling but perhaps when you get back you could measure the distance between the top of your kitchen enclosure/cabinet and the bottom of the overhead molle panel. Also, what air gauge did you use in the a-pillar pod?
Thank you again for sharing all of your wonderful ideas.

 

[jscherb]

Hi Jeff, I realize you're traveling but perhaps when you get back you could measure the distance between the top of your kitchen enclosure/cabinet and the bottom of the overhead molle panel. Also, what air gauge did you use in the a-pillar pod?
Thank you again for sharing all of your wonderful ideas.

I can give you pretty close dimensions - the bottom of the Molle panel is roughly 37" above the floor, and the drawer cabinet and kitchen enclosures are roughly 24" tall, leaving 13" between the two. I can get a more exact dimension for you the next time I install the kitchen in the Jeep, remind me the next time I post a photo with the kitchen in the Jeep, it'll be at least two weeks.

 

[jscherb]

...Also, what air gauge did you use in the a-pillar pod?
Thank you again for sharing all of your wonderful ideas.

I found it on ebay, I put on in each of my 3 Jeeps (all have AirLift kits installed): https://www.ebay.com/itm/Electro-Pr...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2060353.m2749.l2649

 

[OregonJKU]

Hi Jeff, thank you for getting back to me so quickly.

 

[jscherb]

Retrofit Offroad just posted a video demonstrating how the Trail Kitchen deploys. They're showing it with a cooler instead of the fridge, and they remove the cooler mid-video, I think for better views of the kitchen. They're one of the first retailers to have the kitchen in stock...


I'm traveling so I wasn't aware of this video until my friend Ritu in India emailed me the link... thanks Ritu!

 

[akpostal]

Thats pretty dang cool.

 

[jscherb]

MORryde sent me the instructions for the Trail Kitchen no-drill installation kit for the JKU to review today; I think this means that kit is about to be released to production.

 

[jscherb]

I'm in Florida visiting mom and every time I'm here Donny and I get together to talk Jeeps. Since Donny has half doors for his Jeep and I don't, I brought a pair of prototype hard-shell half door uppers to try out.

In spite of the fact that I built these without owning half doors to test fit them on, they fit very well. There are a few very minor tweaks I can make to perfect the fit, but as they are they fit well, install just like the factory uppers and they were very quiet on a quick test drive we did.

I think they'd look great painted Gobi to match the body color of his Jeep; these are painted with MOPAR hardtop black to match a factory hardtop.

 

[rubicon91]

I'm in Florida visiting mom and every time I'm here Donny and I get together to talk Jeeps. Since Donny has half doors for his Jeep and I don't, I brought a pair of prototype hard-shell half door uppers to try out.

In spite of the fact that I built these without owning half doors to test fit them on, they fit very well. There are a few very minor tweaks I can make to perfect the fit, but as they are they fit well, install just like the factory uppers and they were very quiet on a quick test drive we did.

I think they'd look great painted Gobi to match the body color of his Jeep; these are painted with MOPAR hardtop black to match a factory hardtop.

Always great seeing you my friend. The hard shell uppers are awesome. I would love some painted gobi would look awesome. Great job on them Jeff!!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk

 

[jscherb]

Always great seeing you my friend. The hard shell uppers are awesome. I would love some painted gobi would look awesome. Great job on them Jeff!!

Don't tell my mom, but our get-togethers are always the highlight of my trips to Florida, great seeing you again

And thanks for letting me test the uppers on your Jeep; I'll make the last few tweaks to the fit and then I'll call them done and ready for potential production (although I doubt there's enough demand for JK hard uppers to make it worth while to put them in production)

Looking forward to seeing you and both of our Jeeps on display in the vendor expo at Overland East...

 

[MattJ]

Hey Jeff - I think I found the PERFECT tool bag for your swing-down overhead molle panel design. I recently switched to this tool bag, after being impressed by these guys who can sew so well: Video. And here's some more product specs: Tool Bag

You can see that the the bag has a molle straps on one side and a quick access pocket on the other, for the tools you always need to grab often. Best of all, it opens like a book, which would be perfect for your swing-down panel. It could stay securely mounted while you access the tools you need.

I set up my version of this tool bag with six different categories of tools, each in its own zippered bag. Best of all, since your swing-down panel isn't available for sale (yet), I can confirm this bag does fit in that dead space between the roll cage and hard top that I am always trying to find a use for. No more wrench roll and bulky tool bags taking up space in the precious cargo zone!

Hopefully this is helpful to others looking for a similar solution, and eagerly awaiting the chance to purchase your swing down panel, like me!

 

[jscherb]

Hey Jeff - I think I found the PERFECT tool bag for your swing-down overhead molle panel design. I recently switched to this tool bag, after being impressed by these guys who can sew so well: Video. And here's some more product specs: Tool Bag

You can see that the the bag has a molle straps on one side and a quick access pocket on the other, for the tools you always need to grab often. Best of all, it opens like a book, which would be perfect for your swing-down panel. It could stay securely mounted while you access the tools you need.

I set up my version of this tool bag with six different categories of tools, each in its own zippered bag. Best of all, since your swing-down panel isn't available for sale (yet), I can confirm this bag does fit in that dead space between the roll cage and hard top that I am always trying to find a use for. No more wrench roll and bulky tool bags taking up space in the precious cargo zone!

Hopefully this is helpful to others looking for a similar solution, and eagerly awaiting the chance to purchase your swing down panel, like me!

Thanks, I've seen that one. I've also been thinking about various forms of tool storage, including something like this French military surplus item, a variation of which could strap to the roll bar:

A group of my friends are thinking of starting a Jeep accessories business; the first series of products they're considering would be storage accessories like the one you mentioned and the one above as well as seat-back bags, tailgate bags, roll-bar bags, etc. They're thinking of making them available in leather and heavy canvas versions (the canvas versions would have leather accents). They have connections to get the products manufactured in India, where it's relatively inexpensive to have leather goods made, so these could be a higher quality/higher style type of storage accessory than has previously been available in the Jeep market - think of all the high-quality leather storage solutions that are available in the motorcycle market - nothing like that is available for Jeeps as far as I know.

As soon as I get any updates from MORryde on the status of the overhead Molle panel I'll let people know. All I know right now is that it's on their engineering list and they plan to show it at the SEMA Show in Las Vegas in November and at Overland East.

 

[jscherb]

Yesterday I stopped at my favorite military surplus place and I picked up a few interesting things to experiment with. In this first set of photos is a "universal vehicle panel", it seems to be designed to tie to the back of a seat but if can be used in other places. It's got Molle webbing, a large flat pocket, and a medium larger pocket. I tried it on the side of the kitchen enclosure in these photos, I used the paracord ties and secured it to the cleats on the enclosure. The large pocket would be great for holding a cutting board and the medium pocket can hold a 2-liter bottle. Molle-compatible pouches can be hung on the webbing.

The paracord ties attach it easily to the back of the seat:

I also picked up two surplus "US GI Waist/Butt Packs", one in ACU and the other in Desert Camo. They attach to the Molle webbing on the Tactical Spare cover very nicely. Here's the ACU one on an ACU Tactical Spare Cover:

Both seem like they could be handy.

 

[jscherb]

Donny very generously offered to let me borrow his half doors for the next two months so I can finalize the upper hard shell retrofit kit and do some testing. Nice color scheme, don't you think...

They fit very well, but I plan to make one minor tweak to the molds to perfect the fit. The change will also make assembly easier.

I'll run these on the Jeep for the next few weeks to give them a good test.

 

[akpostal]

Definitely looks like a test mule now. If the price point on these can be kept down with a good quality Ild wager they would sell.

Any chance you are gonna try and do the lower half in fiberglass for a complete set?

Has any company shown interest in producing the fenders?