FlatwaterCustom
New member
Greetings Expedition Portal
I had a brief email exchange with a forum member a day ago regarding a vehicle which I actually have for sale. He asked if I was on Expedition Portal, but I was not. I used to be pretty active on a few forums before the great Photobucket debacle. I suppose it's time to venture into the online vehicle modification world once again.
The vehicle which brought this all about is my rendition of a 4 door Jeep XJ pickup. I have seen the various chop-top XJ versions that have been done, and I can see it being handy in certain cases. But I want all the seating capacity, plus a load bed of some sort, not sacrifice the seat belt mounting points for a 30 inch bed.
Its been done a few times using Comanche parts, but I find those examples to be terribly long, the rear area of the cab never turns out well, and if you have a good Comanche, it's better to leave it as a Comanche anyway.
Additionally, at least in Nebraska, if you change the vehicle configuration, you need to retitle it with a state issued VIN. At my last reading of things; if the bed is integral, it's a utility vehicle. But if the load bed is separate from the passenger cabin, it's a truck. You can modify a vehicle, but if you change the configuration or if you remove any major panels, it's an assembled vehicle, and it needs a new VIN. I went through that whole process for my 4-door j-truck. I wanted to stay away from that, but remain completely legal on this unit. An XJ is a utility vehicle, so it cannot have a separate load bed, and I needed to retain all the major body panels.
So that's what I did.
I moved the factory steel tailgate forward to roughly the seat belt mounting points. I built an upper subframe which became the base of the flatbed and the home of the center drawer. I built rear frame rail extensions, stretched the wheelbase 21 inches, and built storage boxes at the 4 corners of the flatbed. Sort of Aussie trayback conversion style.
Obviously by cutting the unibody, the structure would no longer conform to the factory parameters. And there is no realistic way to match what they did calculate. The only real option is to overbuild a few areas to guarantee (as much as possible) the safety and strength of the assembly. That is the other half of the rationale for the roof rack. It is the new structure of the rear half of the body. I will try to add some photos of the rack from the top as the thread goes on.
Long intro, more later.
Thanks for reading along!
I had a brief email exchange with a forum member a day ago regarding a vehicle which I actually have for sale. He asked if I was on Expedition Portal, but I was not. I used to be pretty active on a few forums before the great Photobucket debacle. I suppose it's time to venture into the online vehicle modification world once again.
The vehicle which brought this all about is my rendition of a 4 door Jeep XJ pickup. I have seen the various chop-top XJ versions that have been done, and I can see it being handy in certain cases. But I want all the seating capacity, plus a load bed of some sort, not sacrifice the seat belt mounting points for a 30 inch bed.
Its been done a few times using Comanche parts, but I find those examples to be terribly long, the rear area of the cab never turns out well, and if you have a good Comanche, it's better to leave it as a Comanche anyway.
Additionally, at least in Nebraska, if you change the vehicle configuration, you need to retitle it with a state issued VIN. At my last reading of things; if the bed is integral, it's a utility vehicle. But if the load bed is separate from the passenger cabin, it's a truck. You can modify a vehicle, but if you change the configuration or if you remove any major panels, it's an assembled vehicle, and it needs a new VIN. I went through that whole process for my 4-door j-truck. I wanted to stay away from that, but remain completely legal on this unit. An XJ is a utility vehicle, so it cannot have a separate load bed, and I needed to retain all the major body panels.
So that's what I did.
I moved the factory steel tailgate forward to roughly the seat belt mounting points. I built an upper subframe which became the base of the flatbed and the home of the center drawer. I built rear frame rail extensions, stretched the wheelbase 21 inches, and built storage boxes at the 4 corners of the flatbed. Sort of Aussie trayback conversion style.
Obviously by cutting the unibody, the structure would no longer conform to the factory parameters. And there is no realistic way to match what they did calculate. The only real option is to overbuild a few areas to guarantee (as much as possible) the safety and strength of the assembly. That is the other half of the rationale for the roof rack. It is the new structure of the rear half of the body. I will try to add some photos of the rack from the top as the thread goes on.
Long intro, more later.
Thanks for reading along!
