Chad,

Do you have hard doors or soft doors that your going to hack up? I know avalanche has some new doors they are selling. Basically its a soft door frame that you can weld their steel panels to. You might want to check out their site.

avalancheengr.com

I am actually thinking of doing the same thing this summer sometime. I have a spair set of full soft doors and the windows are junk.

84CJ7 SOA,35's,OnboardAir,Dual winches,Full Cage,Snorkels, and more
OverMost 4WD Club

 

I made some half doors once, full doors too when I had a hard top for my CJ5. I simply used the soft door as a template and cut them out of 1/8" aluminum sheet, finished the edges, used a simple latch like the one on the doors I had and I was done. The full doors I installed windows and hardware from the original plywood doors and used some alum bar to reinforce the edges. Both worked fine. Ended up trading the half doors for my projection system

 

mine are full steel doors, I was thinking of taking the glass out of them and cutting down about 2 inches right behind the inside door handle abd cutting striaght toward the back and welding a peice of sheet metal over the top.
Chad

84 CJ-7 t-18/d20, d44 rearw/welded diff d30 frt and the old 258 amc, 10,500lb winch.'88 Jeep MJ daily driver/tow rig http://www.geocities.com/jeepinaround_novascotia/jeep

 

Before you hack those nice hard doors up, you might check to see if anyone needs a set. You could probably get some decent money for them if they're in ok shape. Then you could buy yourself some 1/2 doors. Or make them cheaper. Just a thought.

 

I've beening thinking about doing the same thing...take some picts if you do. My old set of hard doors just wants to be cut down (no they aren't worth anything...ie no glass or interior or handles...I was given them free)

Luke
http://www.cj7jeep.com

 

Ya luke mine are the same, I striped so many parts off of them that there's no sence in trying to sell them someone would look at them and give me like $20 for them so I think I'll just play with them, I just have to find the time!
Chad

84 CJ-7 t-18/d20, d44 rearw/welded diff d30 frt and the old 258 amc, 10,500lb winch.'88 Jeep MJ daily driver/tow rig http://www.geocities.com/jeepinaround_novascotia/jeep

 

Hey, cut away! If I think you're plannin' what you're plannin', it may not work without a lot of major work. In looking at your drawing you're takin' a OEM hard door and following the trim line and removing metal to lower the sill. Beware when you do this that you're gutting the strength of the door. There's a crash panel below that trim area that you'd have to cut into. The OEM rolled sill also contributes a great deal of strength to the door.

May I suggest that you remove the upright window guides and weld a piece of sheet metal over the existing window opening.

It's a pretty flat, straight shot and would not remove strength or give you a lot of headaches restoring a lowered sill. The whole process to convert a hard door to a half door shouldn't take too long... about 4 to 6 hours.

Humm... perhaps half door ain't quite right since the sill isn't being lowered... how about a new term... Five/eights door?