[jimbosz07]

Oooh oooh supercharger. WOOHOO!!!!!!!

[fast64]

Originally Posted by EricsXJ

That is a concern of mine. Luckily I can now remove the doors which are VERY heavy. The fronts I estimate are close to 80 lbs each, rears probably 50. That probably offsets the extra weight I've added.

But after I do a cage, hmm.... how shall I compensate for that added weight??? I guess I'll be forced to get a supercharger.

I weighed mine when I first went doorless, my fronts were 68 lbs and the rears were 42, so thats 220 pounds that you lose every time you go doorless. Add a few pounds more for power window motors if you got 'em.

[FitchVA]

very nice work!!!!

[XJLI]

Originally Posted by fast64

I weighed mine when I first went doorless, my fronts were 68 lbs and the rears were 42, so thats 220 pounds that you lose every time you go doorless. Add a few pounds more for power window motors if you got 'em.

wow thats a lot more than I expected.

[xj_extreme]

VERY nice work, i am going to be tackling my rockers and plan on doing something very similar as yours, i love it

[Doba]

Excellent build. A lot of really cool ideas that worked out great.

[Zebaru]

So this is why you bailed on my Schoolbus run...

Looks good so far - you are making me and my little boatside job feel inadequate.

[Bryson]

Originally Posted by EricsXJ

That is a concern of mine. Luckily I can now remove the doors which are VERY heavy. The fronts I estimate are close to 80 lbs each, rears probably 50. That probably offsets the extra weight I've added.

But after I do a cage, hmm.... how shall I compensate for that added weight??? I guess I'll be forced to get a supercharger.

Or my turbo kit

Should have pics here soon BTW.

[UltimatE]

Amazing.

Keep up the great work.

[EricsXJ]

Originally Posted by Zebaru

So this is why you bailed on my Schoolbus run...

Looks good so far - you are making me and my little boatside job feel inadequate.

I am bound and determined to keep my rockers higher than yours!

I should be ready to wheel again soon so we will go. I will have ongoing upgrades I will be doing but they shouldn't keep the jeep down for a long period of time like this.

[RWKXJ]

Zebaru is right on the inadequacy of clearance! I though that Tom and I had a pretty sweet set up!
Lookin forward to getting out on the trail...just have to find a weekend to do my WJ knuckle swap, I am about done swapping in a 99+ intake and WJ (4.7) PS pump...more to come on that when I get it all buttoned up on Sat!

[EricsXJ]

I hope you get yours done too RWK so we can get out and take some trips!

I made some more progress on mine. I've finished the passenger side rockers just like the driver side only I didn't turn the passenger side rocker into an air tank. I calculated the driver side is the rough equivalent of a 3 gallon air tank. My old one was 2.5 gallons so this is just right.

So anyway, here's some more pics.

I welded in a triangle piece to cap the front to keep out most of the water and mud. It also acts as a gussett to further prevent the rockers from moving.



Here's the rear. I made this one smaller, leaving half of it open so any water that gets in can flush out.



Here's the air hose hooked up.



Then I primed and painted everything and replaced the door seals.



And another shot of the underside.



I've got 3 out the 4 doors finished so I might have another update tomorrow.

[EricsXJ]

Tonight's update: door modifications

After raising the rockers up to where the door sill was, the doors will not fit back on without cutting off the bottom lip of the door. After struggling with the first one, I found some tips that make the job a whole lot easier. Looking at the picture below, you can see the lip on the bottom part of the door. Almost all of that will be removed. Also, one thing I noticed is the metal is shaped differently on each of the doors. This is the drivers front door.



So for starters, it will me much easier if you first cut out the little bulge, taking care not to cut through the outer skin of the door. I did this with an angle grinder and cut-off wheel.



To clear my rockers enough I found out that I needed to trim 1.75" off the bottom. (Your's may vary.) After taking careful measurements and marking the cut, I used masking tape to protect the doors paint from the guide on the jigsaw. The tape also gives a good visual to help keep the cut straight.



After you make the first cut, its a good time to check the clearance with the rockers. This was just right, leaving about a 3/16" gap between the cut and the rocker.



Then the door goes back on the bench to patch the hole.



The outer door skin is 24 gauge I believe which is incredibly thin. I knew this would happen beforehand, but the tack welds burned the paint off the shiny side of the door. I'm not overly concerned with this because eventually I am going to paint the Jeep. In the meantime I'll put a little paint on it even if it doesn't match, just to keep it from rusting.



To finish it off I painted and sealed between the tack welds leaving a hole at both ends for water to drain out of the door.

[EricsXJ]

For the rear doors, I wanted to test the idea of adding a pin connector so that the wiring could be disconnected without having to remove the interior trim pieces. I'm not sure if I want to try this on the front doors yet, but for sure the rear ones because the factory connector is inside the B-pillar and you have to unbolt the seat belt to get to it. The rear door should also be pretty easy because they only have 5 wires instead of 19 - 21 like the fronts do. Plus there is a good length of wire in the door to work with.



I used a 6-pin connector from Radio Shack that comes in two parts, male and female ends. My only concern is the package says these connectors are for 18 - 22 gauge wire and I found that the wires in the door are 14 and 16 gauge. I didn't see any heavier duty ones there to choose from so this will have to do. Does anyone know where to buy heavier gauge ones?



Heres the new connector spliced into the wires.



And cleaned up.



Then I unplugged it and connected the factory end inside the B-Pillar. I'll never need to unhook the factory connector again as I can now use the new connector I added in a much easier location.



After cutting 1.75" off the bottom of the rear door I put it on only to find that it doesn't match up with the front.



I can't figure out how that happened since I know I measured correctly and it would have been impossible to cut too high or I would have noticed it when patching the bottom of the door. It must be something with the door hinges a little off.

[hermantherugger]

Everything looks great!

I'd agree with the statement about the hinges, if you look at the "crease" in the door about 6 inches up, it's off by about as much as your cut. Loosen 'em up, and wiggle 'em down. It took me a lot of time to get everything to line up correctly after I removed the doors for my Durabak project.