My DIY Doors

Now I find myself putting the UPS tracking number in and refreshing the page every so often to watch the progress. As it stands, the welder and torch should arrive Thursday evening. I should hopefully have all my gases for both the torch and welder by then. Next bit of work is to add my 220 outlet in the garage. Luckily, my breaker box is in the garage so I only need to run a couple feet of wire/conduit. I am going to try out the wire samples that come with it for the mig setting before ordering more. At any rate, the hope is that having the welder in the garage will allow me to complete this a lot sooner.
 
That is one badass welder!! You will have to let us know how it works! I recently bought a Hobart welder but I also have an old Lincoln buzz box I use once in a while.
 
I certainly will. There are a couple good YouTube videos on the Lincoln machine. I blew my tire fund to get this stuff, but I live so rural and like building stuff I thought it would be a good investment. Still rolling the Wrangler SRA's until I can save up again.

I already have bumper project ideas starting to creep into my brain, but gotta stay focused on these doors.
 
Let me know how that welder is. I've been looking into it for awhile. It's new for 2015
 
Aspenkid said:
Sweet!!! Going to have fun this weekend, aren't you.
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Yeah, but I can only run 110 for the moment and flux core on the mig. I should have my oxy, acetylene and C25 picked up Wednesday. I still have to install my 220 outlet in the garage (even though I can switch between 110 & 220 with this machine) and I'm just waiting on the breaker to arrive. (I have to order everything or drive 8 hrs round trip to the nearest Lowes/Home Depot.)

JRied said:
Finally it arrived... I've been waiting for updates on these doors lol
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You and me both!

Peak said:
Nice! I can't wait to see the outcome
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Thanks! Me too :yup:

JK12 said:
Let me know how that welder is. I've been looking into it for awhile. It's new for 2015
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Will do. Yes, it was just released late last year and has been on a steady 5-6 week back order everywhere. I called Lincoln trying to buy direct from their store. They told me they have so many vendor orders they are not listing it on their online store! I realize it's not some heavy duty daily abuse big dog of a machine, but for the DIY'er it seems to be very good! www.bakersgas.com is where I got it and the torch outfit with free shipping.
 
The latest

It's been a little while since I have been able to update with any real progress. I've been trying to get everything setup at home, but the extremely rural setting I live in, while renting, has slowed a lot down. I'm still waiting on my 220 outlet to be installed. The landlord won't allow me to do it myself. :mad: Each time I've called the welding supply closest to me, they've been out of one or the other of the three gasses I need. :mad::mad: It's not worth the 4 hour, 220 mile round trip if all three tanks can't be picked up. But, I have gotten to the "classroom" once and did some 110 flux core tacking today. (I do hate how dirty flux core is, but it's getting the job done for now.)

The welder setup this morning...

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I still need to cut the plate and mount the latches, then grind out all the welds on the rear doors. They fit the doors frames very well! I had some 1/2" stainless rod shipped in to see if I can make some hinge pins instead of using the bolts I have. The bolts will be difficult to tighten down when on the Jeep, I think. I will see how it goes...

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Today, I got some work done on the top rail of the first front door. I have had to use the angle grinder to get the angles right for this. My chop saw won't hit 55*.:grayno:

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Hopefully, things will swing my way to get running the welder on 220 with solid wire soon!
 
Thanks! :thumb: It's been what seems to be a long process, but I've learned a lot. I realize with the cost of materials and my time that I'm probably not really saving much money (if I were paying my own hourly rate), but being able to do this myself has been fun. My kids can't wait! My wife and I will feel better about being "doorless" with these on and the kiddos in the back. I may even make some sun shade covers for them to keep debris from flying in low. I don't know yet, but I have plenty of that material and grommets on hand.
 
As of today, all of the tubing is welded up on the fronts and rears! I need to pick up some plate to start figuring out how to line up the latches. The latches are my next anxious :eek::shock: item to figure out, like many other portions of this project. I still need to grind out all of my welds, of course, but I hope to work on that here and there over the next few days...





 
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Successes, failures, and the learning curve

I set yesterday aside to work on the doors. My intent was to get the hinges (bolts) set and plate cut/set for latch mounting.

All of the hinges are set! Success! I picked up some threaded couplings and 3/8x 3 1/2" bolts threaded to the head. I had to grind the couplers down a bit to get them to fit inside the 1/2" pipe, but it worked. The doors sit in the female side of the hinges just right now without any slop.







Now, as I said, they do fit. But...this was the first time I had the doors on in their mounting position. I intended for the top rails to be level with each other as well as the middle rail. They are off by an inch to an inch and a half! After I got over the shock and decided that cutting the doors apart was more than I wanted to do, I chalked it up to the "learning curve". I will be adding pipe insulation as padding on the top rails for everyone's arms, so It'll probably blend better then. At least, that's what I was telling myself until I slept on it last night.









I took a little break to think about what I considered a failure in my fab work then got started on cutting the plate needed to mount the latches. I am waiting to see if I am going to get a job transfer out of state, so I never got those welding gasses. All I had handy was the good ole angle grinder. It took way longer than I wanted to cut four pieces out of the 10 guage plate, but I was generally happy with them. I got to tacking on the rear doors. When I grabbed my first front door I realized that I welded the plate on the wrong side of the dang rear doors! Not just tacked, but welded!!!! ARGH! I test fit them on the rear of the Jeep and they will stick out way too far no matter how I put them on. Here's what they looked like after that discovery and at quitting time...



I have enough pipe to raise the front, top bar level with the rear and will probably do that to make myself happy. I will of course need to get more 10 guage plate for the fronts when I raise the top bar. I considered moving my 1/2' pipe hinges, but then the frame of the door won't sit in the jamb like it does now. I'm very happy with how the lower sections fit the jambs, which is probably because I took my time with that and have felt rushed with most of the rest.

Without completely cutting the front doors up, I cannot fix the center bars from being off, but I can live with that. I will have to cut the plate off the rear doors and see if I can salvage that plate too.

So, that was my good/bad day of DIY work/learning experience...
 
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