Thank you very much. Funny you should mention the half door upper kit, a lot's been going on with that project recently...

The company sold out it's first production run of slider retrofit kits in the first week, and the second run should be shipping from the window manufacturer to the company any day now.

That's for the kit to install sliders in the factory canvas uppers; progress is also being made on the "hard shell retrofit kit", which turns the factory upper into a hard upper - the canvas gets removed from the factory plastic frame, a fiberglass outer skin gets bonded to the frame, and the slider window gets installed in the fiberglass skin. It's designed to be a DIY kit. I made up another prototype for testing just yesterday, photos below. It's a rear door upper, I haven't made molds for the front door uppers yet.

The end result is (I think) a perfect combination of a half door with the precise fit, rigidity and weathertightness of the factory upper along with quiet almost like a full door.

Today, not more than 15 minutes before your post, I received an email from the company that's selling the slider retrofit kit and it appears they may want to go ahead with the hard shell retrofit kit as well. They'll probably do some market testing first to see if there's enough demand to make it worthwhile to bring to market.



I've done the prototypes with a textured matte-black finish to match the hardtop, but they can also be painted body color if that's what someone wanted, and the texture can very quickly be sanded off if someone wants them smooth before they paint them.





BTW this is what the slider looks like in the factory canvas skin:

 

Any chance the company will be making the upper fabric in twill?
How do I get in on an order?

 

As far as I know, the company has no plans to offer fabric uppers. Their current slider window retrofit kit installs in factory sailcloth canvas uppers, replacing the factory vinyl window, and if they decide there's enough market interest to offer the hard shell retrofit kit I posted about earlier this evening, that'll replace the factory canvas skin with a fiberglass skin. But no plans for alternate cloth uppers as far as I know.

 

Can you say the companies name yet? And, I'd like to order when possible.

 

Since the company isn't an official vendor on this forum yet, I won't mention their name here.

For the record: I am not an employee of the company in question, nor do I receive any compensation when they sell the jk half door slider retrofit kit.

 

Any Idea when they will have them back in stock for the stock half doors ?

 

In the email I got from the company yesterday, they said the window manufacturer was expected to ship the new production run of windows to them today. They also told me they've got a waiting list. I don't know how many sets of windows are in this run or how many people are on the waiting list.

 

I haven't had much time to work on the JK Safari Cab lately due to travel, holidays, etc., but this morning I found some time to get the wiring harnesses to the point where they're ready to install in the Jeep.

The harness at left in the photo is the barn door harness - it's basically an extension cord that plugs into the factory hardtop plug in the Jeep, runs under the carpet to the hinge side of the barn door, and plugs into the barn door for the wiper and defroster grid. I finished and tested this one a while back.

In the middle is the fuse/relay box for accessory power for the hardtop. It mounts in the engine compartment and plugs in to the TIPM and connects to the battery. If supplies switched and unswitched power to the hardtop; both circuits are fused.

At right is the harness that connects to the fuse/relay box in the center; it runs through the firewall, and under the carpet along the passenger side of the Jeep to the rear corner, where it plugs into the hardtop. The loose plug will go on the hardtop side of the wiring.



The fuse/relay box and accessory harness could also be used in a JK with a stock hardtop or a soft top to bring power to the back of the Jeep for accessories.

Now I just have to get some time alone with the JK to install these.

 

One of the reasons the Safari Cab/\ project is taking a while is that I'm always getting sidetracked with ideas for new things I just have to build. For example, this week I made up some brackets to mount ammo cans above the rear inner fenders in a JKU. They bolt to the tub rail using the hardtop bolts so there's no drilling, and the same bracket can mount on either side of the Jeep. The vertical part of the bracket is also a Molle grid. It's compatible with the soft top as well, the can is positioned far enough inboard so it won't interfere with the soft top bows when they're folded down. Here are a few photos...

50 cal:



2 x 30 cal and some Molle pouches:



Fat 50:



Or a spare battery, perhaps to run a fridge?



A view of both sides:



I'll be working on mounting the barn door to the JK tailgate this week, so probably some photos of that later in the week.

 

That Speaker Thing sure takes up space, is it worth it ?