My DIY Doors

Nice fab work!!! Im liking the design of the doors. Its always the worst when you rush and make errors that make you do 2-3x more work :icon_crazy:
 
I'm thinking you can just cut the top bar on the rear doors on a 45 on the top corners. Then cut the top of the vertical pieces shorter with another 45 and weld back together.

Basically a pair of parallel 45 cuts at each corner about an inch or so apart. Whatever your off. Mark what you want to remove and leave the lines. Your blade is not paper thin, so you have to account for its cut.

In my opinion, it is a relatively easy correction.

Looks good, and very stout.

Oh, tack welding for test fitting is your friend. Not that I like to do that either.
 
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jango said:
Nice fab work!!! Im liking the design of the doors. Its always the worst when you rush and make errors that make you do 2-3x more work :icon_crazy:
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budmanm3 said:
Nice project. They are nice for a newb welding job.
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Thanks, I do have to remind myself at times I am indeed a newb to this. I am my worst critic and I'm not too easy on myself.

RMC2 said:
I'm thinking you can just cut the top bar on the rear doors on a 45 on the top corners. Then cut the top of the vertical pieces shorter with another 45 and weld back together.

Basically a pair of parallel 45 cuts at each corner.

In my opinion, it is a relatively easy correction.

Looks good, and very stout.
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Funny, I was just staring at other pics and this is what just popped into my newbie mind. No matter what I know I have to cut the plate off the rears, so it makes sense to focus all the attention on as few doors as possible. My only concern is having room for the very high latch location on the rears. I'll have to pull all the doors, set the project doors back on and do a lot of measuring. Thanks for the reinforcing idea!
 
USMC Wrangler said:
Thanks, I do have to remind myself at times I am indeed a newb to this. I am my worst critic and I'm not too easy on myself.



Funny, I was just staring at other pics and this is what just popped into my newbie mind. No matter what I know I have to cut the plate off the rears, so it makes sense to focus all the attention on as few doors as possible. My only concern is having room for the very high latch location on the rears. I'll have to pull all the doors, set the project doors back on and do a lot of measuring. Thanks for the reinforcing idea!
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No problem. I think you did a pretty good job. Just a minor error.
 
Great job! They look fantastic, are you sure you've never welded before?! ;) Does anyone here in NorCal know of any good welding classes like this?
 
mattsat said:
Great job! They look fantastic, are you sure you've never welded before?! ;) Does anyone here in NorCal know of any good welding classes like this?
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Thanks!

I've tinkered around with some welding in the past, but never really was showed the do's and don'ts. I'm starting to see consistency in my beads and figure out my settings. The class has helped but having my own equipment at home to practice with has been the right combo.

The class I'm in is as unique as this part of West Texas. You can find welding classes at a lot of community colleges or check out the American Welding Society website.
 
I snuck in a couple hours of setup, work and cleanup tonight. So I think this is a lot better! Top rails that are even!

 
Updates with latches!

The first order of business today was to get the passenger side rear door top bar right.

Done!



Next, I TACKED the plate to the correct side of the passenger side rear door…



While I had both passenger side project doors on, I decided to work on setting the latches. This was very time consuming. I attached the latch to the striker bar, closed the door, held the latch in place with a magnet and traced around the latch. Using a poster board template I made, I cut out the hole for the latch and kept test fitting until everything lined up.

One down, three to go…



On both rear doors, the Rugged Ridge latches hit the door at the rear. A few minutes with the grinder and test fitting fixed that.





Here’s a quick video on the first latch completed…


On any of the doors that rattle, I may add a rubber stopper to the door or shim the hinges out with washers. I’ll figure that out later.

The front door latch on the passenger side took even more time. The curve in the Jeep’s doorjamb curves a little. A little more grinding than I liked to do, but it lined up.

You can see the bare metal where I had to grind for a correct fit here…



And here is the second latch done…



I still need to weld the plate on the already fixed rear driver’s side door and set both of the latches on that side. Then I need to weld some plate in the front doors to mount the mirrors and get all the door limiter straps on each door. After that, some grinding, sanding, paint prep, primer and paint. I will get some pipe insulation for the top bars and my darling wife will make some Velcro/cloth covers for those.

The list is getting shorter, but I know there is still a lot to do. Still, zero regrets doing this myself!
 
:thumb: Thanks fellas. I was so happy when the doors opened and closed as I intended them to. I didn't plan on shooting that short video, but had to show exactly how well it worked out. :rock: I keep surprising myself with either panic or excitement. I guess that's what makes it fun in the end.
 
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