jscherb

I molded another set of JK Safari Cab side panels the other day and popped them out of the molds this morning. Here they are right after coming out of the molds, they haven't been trimmed yet and the mold release isn't washed off. They're sitting next to the first set, which have the kick-out vent windows installed.



The next step is to trim up the edges and cut the hole for mounting the window; here's a shot of a slider window just sitting on the untrimmed panel.



The windows will mount directly in these side panels because the Safari Cab window mounting surface is flat, unlike the factory window mounting surface, which is curved.

Skippman

Come on vendors! Someone give this guy a job! I need this!

jscherb

Please, no talk about jobs! I do this as a hobby, doing it as a job would take all the fun out of it .

jscherb

A few weeks ago I posted some photos of "Gullwing Doors" (as they're known in the Land Rover world) with cargo compartments to replace hardtop windows :



I've done a little design work on the idea to see how much room would really be available in the JKU, given that the roll bar gets in the way. A JKU cargo compartment would look something like this:



You can see there's an accommodation for the roll bar, but there's still almost 4" of depth at the bottom of the compartment between the door and the roll bar cavity, so there's still a pretty good amount of room inside. The overall depth other than at the roll bar cavity is about 7", which brings it to the inside edge of the roll bar inside the Jeep. There would also have to be a small accommodation for the mount for the rear seat belt, that's not shown in this drawing.

The door could have a mount for a Rotopax container on the outside, or perhaps some other piece of trail gear.

The back of the compartment would probably have some sort of grid system, so you could use something like QuickFist mounts to secure trail gear, or perhaps even mount some shelves or baskets inside to organize cargo. Or maybe a Molle grid would be a good idea.

The compartment is a bit larger than the hatch opening for maximum interior space. The dimensions in this drawing are rough dimensions, to be refined as the design progresses.

An animated view...



Someone also suggested installing the hatch the other way so it swings down and functions as a table, and they suggested installing a light, which is a good idea whichever way the hatch is installed.

Vladimer

Oh man.. I want that too lol

jscherb

The would work with your factory hardtop... the way I've designed them, they could be installed in a factory hardtop as well as the Safari Cab .

budmanm3

This is pretty cool. You should fabricate a handle bar under the window so that when the window is up a person can grab it and lift off the top when needed. Would that lessen the structural aspect of what you already built in?
I know I've seen one on the forum before a guy had built. Just seemed like a great idea.

jscherb

Handles probably aren't necessary because the hardtop will probably be removed in pieces since it's modular. Two sides, the rear panel, the barn door and the roof (all but the roof are shown below).



In my case, in the 4 years I've had the Safari Cab on my LJ, I've never actually removed the whole thing - I've left the roof on all the time, and I remove the hard side panels when the cold weather is over and install the roll-up soft sides. I don't know if that's what most people would do with their Safari Cabs, but it's perfect for my use of the Jeep.



I suppose unlike me some people would want to swap to their factory soft top for the summer, but since it's easy to remove the top in pieces (and especially easy to store it in pieces), I doubt most people would want to remove it in one piece.

Four Low

I like the modular pieces stored under the bed . Sweet Dreams are made of this !

Vladimer

Lol, well isn't that great! I need to raid your workshop for the barn door and these window cargo compartments