CJ/YJ Upper DoorShape/Designs

[W_A_Watson_II]

Thanks to Dave Lennie and thus Sean Scheeler, I have a half a hard top to keep warmer and dryer in bad weather. However, my Bestop Upper Soft Doors apparently were not made to fit. In the following picture you can see the fit and the red line in the second picture shows the shape/fit issue.




I removed the uppers from the doors and held them up and they clearly aren't small enough to fit, so no adjustments will ever help.

So, anyone have any clues or recommendations? I'm assuming with all the different brands, etc..e shapes just are different. I hadn't payed a lot of attention tot he Bestop doors that came on the Jeep, but knowing the Jeep had a factory hard top when it was built, I'd just assumed the doors had also fit it, but doesn't look to be the case.

[frankstruwe]

Will, that's exactly why I asked if you were sure your doors would fit. Based on what I've read, the only solution is a homemade fix using TJ upper soft doors with two of the pins moved to fit the location of the YJ (or CJ) lowers. I was searching for soft doors for my scrambler this winter, and in verifying that the Bestop would fit I discovered a lot of posts about this topic.

This is the best overview that I've found:
http://www.cj-8.com/forum/showthread.ph ... door+upper

[W_A_Watson_II]

Thanks Dave, guess I didn't understand all the variations. I'd seen several with square upper rear corners, but was not aware of the lower shape and door length issues on the uppers. That's why I thought I was OK, oh well.

I might just have to make my own upper door frame wire shape and make my own covers. OR I could be on the look out for some hard doors and have even better protection.

[W_A_Watson_II]

OK, I now have the upper soft door frames taken care of, next to get the covers re-trimmed and sewn back to fit the modified frames.

I decided to just cut and modify the existing upper soft door frames. So I removed the cover, and started looking at what it would take. Ended up removing rear portion of the wire frame and shortening it lengthwise by ~1", and lowering it. I also modified the lower rear corner to better match the door opening on the hard top.






Now a new question. I've seen a variety of methods of attaching the front of the hard top to the windshield frame. My old frame had a couple of small latch plates, and I've seen latches used as well as a strip of metal. Any recommendations?

My Jeep:


Other Solutions I've seen:

[Fraser]

Check out the TJ top latches, then if you want to try to go that route, I've got a set you can have.

[W_A_Watson_II]

Basically finished the half-hard top for bad weather. Still need to make the rear lexan window, and have the door upper covers remade/sewn.