Cutting up the hatch, making it usefull!

[IslanderXJ]

What I want it to look like (not my jeep just the only good level rear pic I could find on )

Where I want to move the stock lock, and Jeep Emblem

Where I think I should put reinforcment in the new hatch/door to support the weight of a tire, jerry cans, and high lift jack.

What do you guys think? Is it feesible/a good idea? I'm kinda on a low budget $200-300, possible/impossible?
Any tips or help would be great, TIA
Jackson

 

[luvme88xj]

It looks like yuo have the fiber glass hatch. I have thought about useing some diamond plate just under 1/8 stock that I have and running it from the area where the license plate recess starts to the tail lights and wrap it around them to protect them from timber. The fiber glass is around 1/4 in. thick. and can get to be heavy. In order to clear the tail lights your hinges are going to have to be as wide as the hatch and the area that you would be hinging it ia around 6". Also you will have to chamfer the latch side as to prevent it from binding on your driver side tail light when opening and closing it. I think there is sommme pics of a XJ with recessed LED tail lights in the Texas Chapter forum. He used the excisting hole and removed his boxes all together. This would give you room for the swing out design and more structure to support the weight of a spare tire and a couple cans and jack. All in all i think it could be done but... trial and error factor is high. Pick up a hatch at the bone yard and and start cutting and glassing. And if you have never worked with fiber glass, enjoy! That shit will make you itch in places you never knew you had skin

 

[luvme88xj]

ever notice the doors on a buick sag. They are very long and heavy. Also a trip to the bone yard will help in lookig for various latch and hinge set ups. I think heavy duty gate hinges might work, ie. steel gate hinges. or semi trailer hinges

 

[IslanderXJ]

I have worked with fiberglass alot boats and body work in my high school shop. Yeah I still go there and abuse the fact that I went to a REALLy small school with my graduating class of only 56. Anyway, I have some Heavy Duty Steal door hinges, but I can't take them apart to weld them to anything.
I was thinking of reinforcing the area behind the taillight alot, and making some kind of L shaped bracket that bolt behind the light and to the hinge.
How do you get the interior off the hatch by the way?, it still eludes me and I would like to reuse it without destroying it.
TIA,
Jackson

 

[Menzenski]

If you're hanging a tire on the hatch, how do you plan on opening it? Or are you going to make a swingout that mounts behind the taillight? Some more details on that would be nice.

How do you get the interior off the hatch by the way?, it still eludes me and I would like to reuse it without destroying it.

The plastic on the inside of the hatch? It's held on with those little 'tree-shaped' plastic clips; mine pulled right off.

 

[IslanderXJ]

I'm planning on cutting the hatch in half. from the top of the one tailight to the other, with the top half still opening up, and the bottom swinging out like on a wrangler. I marked the cuts in red on the middle picture.
Going to be tons of fiberglassing, reinforcing, and welding from what i'm looking at. would anybody make a recomendation on what tubing to use internally, square or round, size, thickness?

 

[Wiley Coyote]

You are going to have to get some extremely heavy duty pistons to open the lift gate with a tire attached. I’m sure what you are trying to do can be done, but it will be some serious ass pain. Why not build a swing out tire carrier based off of the rear bumper? It was a heck of a lot easier and didn’t cost much money.

 

[bigjohnson69]

what kind of a bumper is that?

 

[IslanderXJ]

The tire will be attached to the bottom half of the hatch that swings out lke a wrangler tail gat. The hatch will only essentialy be lifintg itself anf the lock I moved to it, it will be lighrter. The hinges on the gate will be very heavy duty though, and will be left over from heavy steel dooors, like in a library or governement building.

 

[IslanderXJ]

what kind of a bumper is that?

I havce no idea, itsa not my cherokee, I just used the pic because it was the only one i could find that was from the rear and level. I don't have a digital camera. I used photoshop.

 

[WHTXJ89]

www.rigidco.com but picks arent up yet

 

[Wiley Coyote]

The tire will be attached to the bottom half of the hatch that swings out lke a wrangler tail gat. The hatch will only essentialy be lifintg itself anf the lock I moved to it, it will be lighrter. The hinges on the gate will be very heavy duty though, and will be left over from heavy steel dooors, like in a library or governement building.

You lost me on that one. From the picture it looks like the swing out tire carrier is mounted to the lift hatch. This would mean that when you opened the lift hatch, the spare tire and swing out carrier would be lifted up as well. Were you going to mount the hinges to the side of the body somehow? I don’t know how to post pictures here. If you PM me with an email address I’ll send you a picture of my swing out tire carrier.

 

[87manche]

You lost me on that one. From the picture it looks like the swing out tire carrier is mounted to the lift hatch. This would mean that when you opened the lift hatch, the spare tire and swing out carrier would be lifted up as well. Were you going to mount the hinges to the side of the body somehow? I don’t know how to post pictures here. If you PM me with an email address I’ll send you a picture of my swing out tire carrier.

I think he's wanting to make the factory hatch a two piece affair. The bottom half will swing out, hinged on the right side of the body.
The upper glass half will still function like normal.
My questions is what about the tire clearance to the glass part of the hatch? You'll have to space the spare a bit back to clear the arc of the upper hatch opening. otherwisre you'll have to swing out the tire to open the glass, and then you might as well just built it onto the bumper and save all the hassle.

 

[IslanderXJ]

Let whip up my great plan to fix that problem in paint real quick.

The picture labled A: There is a joint where the left red arrow points that is atttached to a plate on one side and the tire mount on the other. the bottom connection is a solid "L" that is hinged in the tire side to allow the top half to pivot around it.
The picture labled B: the left red arrow shows the joint fully extended to allow enough room for the top hatch/glass to open.( I know its not very accurate, its paint and it took like 30sec)

 

[Wiley Coyote]

OK I got you now, that makes a lot more sense. You are going to run into some problems on the passenger side. There is nothing solid where you have the hinges in the picture. The only thing is the tail light assembly and it is not nearly strong enough to hold the weight of a spare tire. You would have to weld in a piece of plate steel and figure out how to tie it into the body for structural support. As mentioned before, you would have to tip the spare tire out to get the top half of the lift gate and window to clear it. You would also need some way to pin that hinge so the tire won’t rattle while you are driving. I think that it would be possible to do what you are talking about and it would definitely look cool. Man that would be painful to build and I’m not sure you can do it for $200. Don’t take this the wrong way, but if you were having problems figuring out how to remove the inside cover of the lift gate do you really want to take on a project like this? What you are talking about involves some advanced fabrication techniques. I know I couldn’t pull it off and still make it look good, can you?

 

[IslanderXJ]

I belive I can, I Defintley have the patients and fiberglass skills, OK welding skills, but I can get some buddys to do that for me. When I asked the question about the rear panel, I was just making sure I wasn't going to destroy something I wanted to re-use, just didn't know how it was attached. I have removed all of the other panels and parts before to run either trailer wiring or CB coax.
About the hinge I will take some cardboard and give you an idea of what I'm thinking, be right back...

 

[Wiley Coyote]

You’ll have to post pictures when it’s done. How big of a spare are you running? The TJ guys seem to start having problems with door sag when they run anything larger than 33s on the factory carrier. It would be much easier to get the factory swing out tire carrier off of an older AMC XJ (pre ’90). Make sure you get the kind that mounts into the rear bumper AND passenger side panel. That’s what I did with mine. I think it came off of an ’87 and it was cheap, I want to say $20. They only require slight modification of your rear bumper, passenger side panel and relocating the license plate. They work well for tires up to and including 31” and look "factory", because they are.

 

[IslanderXJ]

I'm running 31"s all around, but I'm going to be putting Jerry cans on it too so... I might have to "Over" inforce it a little bit
Heres my great Idea:

/\- will trim up tail light box a little and run the plate under it, welded to the body, will reinforce the inside off the body with some bracketry/plating

/\- My Stainless Steel Heavy Duty Door hinge, there will be two.

/\- the bracket/plate won't actuallly stick out this much, I just didn't have any scissors around to make it smaller

 

[Wiley Coyote]

Pics sent to your email addy.

 

[BIGSLVRXJ]

Yo IslanderXJ I see you're still around after over a year...how far did you get on this project?