Half Door Saga

A huge reason I love Jeeps are the top-down doors-off days of summer.  I wanted a set of half-doors that would give a nice look and a feeling of security when the hard doors are off.  I want the doors off and my wife to be willing to ride with me.

First I looked into Mopar OEM factory half doors: they wanted $1000 for a pair, a bit out of my price range.  I then called around to local wrecking yards and found them wanting over $300 each for slightly dinged-up half-doors from wrecked TJs, ridiculous.

So then I ended up looking into the tubular half-doors that I had heard about from a fellow "Jeeper".  He had bought 2 sets for his JK unlimited.

I settled on the ones I felt looked the best and had the best bang for buck:  Smittybilt SRC Tubular Doors.  http://www.smittybilt.com/product/index/56.htm  These are a heavy, beefy set of doors that only set me back $250 for the pair at local retail (Bucks 4x4 in Boise).

Installation should have been a snap.  I stress should.  Little did I know that there is a little thing called a door hinge bushing that needed to be removed from inside the 8-year-old door hinge that has been there for 8 years and was as stuck in there as if it was there for 8 years.  These needed to be removed before the half doors would go in.

After perusing Jeepforum I found people talking about how to remove them and proceeded to pound them out as they did with a flat- head screwdriver and hammer.  With those removed I found the new doors relatively easy to install after that.

I do find that the look is excellent.  They have a powdercoat black finish with a nice design.  The door handles that are inside mount take a bit to get used to.   The latches line up relatively well but could probably use a bushing of all things to get them to seat 100% correctly, what are the odds?  When latched the doors are very sturdy feeling and my wife seemed at ease on our first couple of drives.

We have been hitting an awful patch of rain through May and into June forcing me to just swap back the hard-top and doors.  They too could use the aid of some bushings to seat correctly now.  I have found a company that sells bushings for TJs and I'll have a review up when I get them installed.

For now I am listening to the rain against the window and wondering if it will be July before we get 5 nice days in a row.  La Nina is what is to blame, according to the weatherman.