Late Model Door Envy Retrofit

[COjeeper]

For awhile now I have wanted to upgrade my doors on my 95 to some late model doors. My reasoning being I already changed the console out to a late model one with cup holders and I was tired of hitting my head on the window track on my split window when wheeling. So I started looking into doing the swap. I searched a lot of forums and only found a few articles on doing the swap, but nothing went into real detail. So I set out to do a write up on it in the hopes that anybody with the slightest mechanical and electrical skill could do this.

So with that being said, I went looking for some late model doors and everything needed to do the swap. I headed off to the local you pull and pay and found the front doors off of a 97 that was the same color as mine, well not quite exactly a match, but I plan on repainting them anyway, so that really wasn't an issue. I lucked out and found doors that still had the internals and the passenger door had the trim, but not the driver door. Not a big problem at the time, I figured I would come back and find another one when the time came to needing it.

When grabbing the doors make sure to grab the door strikers from the late model as well! I forgot to and had to go back and get some. :doh: Don't forget the backing plate inside the B column as well. I ended up having to take the trim off the B pillar, the seatbelt mechanism out and had to cut some of the sheet metal out of it to get at it.

Here is what you will need to make it work. The backing plates I used were from a TJ if I remember right. They are the zinc colored ones in the upper right in the picture, the ones off of the late model are the ones on the lower left. The TJ ones are way beefier as you can see and that is the route I went.



When I grabbed the doors, I cut out the door plugs as well. I cut as much wire as i could after the plug on the vehicle side of the wiring so i had plenty of wiring when it came to tie it all in. I was only able to use the 3 white plugs on the drivers side do to the passenger side plugs were tied right into the fuse panel. For the speaker wires, I cut the plug off the old door and wired into the new door.







Now that I had all the parts I needed, it was time to preform surgery. I started by taking off the old doors. I didn't take any pictures of this process, as it is pretty straight forward. Other than being a pain in the arse getting the 6 bolts out of the hinge going into the door, everything is pretty easy. Ended up having to heat up the bolts to get mine out. When reading bout this swap, I read some conflicting information on whether the doors would swap. There is a difference in door hinges between the older Cherokees and the newer ones, but both doors bolt up to both style of hinges so don't be alarmed.

Once I got the old door off, I began to hand the new door. This took me awhile to do, especially by myself. Trying to hang the door and bolt it up at the same time was a pain in the arse. I would highly recommend the help of a buddy, definitely would have made it a lot easier. :banghead: I ended up having to mess with the shims to get my door body lines to match up, that and a little persuasion with my body weight hanging off the door helped out quite a bit. I took my time with this step because I like clean lines and I am pretty anal when it comes to things like that.

 

[COjeeper]

Now that I got the door lines all nice and neat like I like, I began to work on the door strikers. I started by taking all the trim off back to the B pillar and taking out the seatbelt assembly. Next I took the old door striker off so I could get the new one mounted. As you can see in the picture, you have to get the nut that the old striker screwed into out.



Once I got to this point, I needed to some how get at it, so I originally started to cut a 2 1/2" hole with a hole saw, but I was worried that I was going to weaken the B pillar by doing so, so I used a 1" unibit and made a hole at the same level as the hole for the old striker.





Once I drilled the hole, I had to take a long screw driver and a hammer to knock out the old nut.



Next I closed the door enough to where I could mark a line where the new striker should be to line up with the door latch.



With the line marked, now I could get the new striker installed. I took the new one and set it up to the B pillar and made sure the striker lined up with the line I had marked. At first i set it to cover the old hole completely, but then I ended up moving it back towards the interior so that a little part of the original hole was showing.



Then I used the striker to mark the bottom hole and I drilled a 1/2" hole for it.



Now that I had my hole drilled, I began to mount the new striker. I can't count how many times I dropped the backing plate to the striker as I was trying to hold it and screw in the striker at the same time. Another instance where I could have used an extra set of hands or went ahead and cut that 2 1/2" hole. :doh:

I think it turned out pretty good.



I ended up using a little caulking to fill in the little gap that wasn't covered. I thought about welding it, but since it was just a little hole, I felt the caulking would work just fine.



Now it was on to the wiring.

 

[COjeeper]

I used the pin out of the connectors from the JP's website. To me, this was a little confusing at first, but after studying it for what seemed like months it made sense. I'm hoping to making it easier to understand by adding some pictures. I'm a picture kind of guy. So here is what I used:

MODERN DOOR SWAP

Driver (left) 8-way
Cavity-Circuit-Gauge-Color-Description
1 P71 20 YL Left power mirror (up)
2 P76 20 OR/YL Left power mirror (down/right)
3 M1 18 PK Fused ignition b(+)
4 P74 20 DB Right power mirror (right)
5 Z1 12 BK Ground
6 P75 20 DB/WHT Left power mirror (right)
7 P72 20 YL/BK Right power mirror (up)
8 O1 14 YL Master switch window lock out

Driver (left) door
Cavity-Circuit-Gauge-Color-Description
1 Q28 14 DB/WHT Master switch to right rear motor (down)
2 Q18 14 GY/BK Master switch to right rear motor (up)
3 Q16 14 BR/WHT Master switch to right front window motor (up)
4 Q17 14 DB/VT Master switch to left rear motor (up)
5 Q11 16 LB Master switch to left front motor (up)
6 Q26 14 VT/WHT Master switch to right front motor (down)
7 P35 18 OR/VT Master switch to power door lock relay
8 Z1 12 BK Ground
9 F81 12 TN Master switch to power feed (switched positive)
10 Q27 14 RD/BK Master switch to left rear motor (down)
11 P36 18 PK/VT Master switch to power door unlock relay
12 Q21 16 WHT Master switch left front motor

Passenger (right) 8-way
Cavity-Circuit-Gauge-Color-Description
1 P59 20 LB/RD Remote keyless entry lock control
2 P55 20 DB Remote keyless entry unlock control
3 P35 20 OR/VT Power door lock relay
4 F81 12 TN Power window switch feed (switched positive)
5 F35 16 RD Power door lock relay feed
6 Z1 12 BK Ground
7 P36 18 PK/VT Power door unlock relay
8 G26 20 LB Door ajar key in

Passenger (right) door
Cavity-Circuit-Gauge-Color-Description
1 P34 16 PK/BK Power door lock (unlock)
2 Q22 16 VT Right front power window motor (down)
3 Q26 14 VT/WHT Master switch right front window motor (down)
4 Q16 14 BR/WHT Master switch right front window motor (up)
5 P33 18 OR/BK Power door lock (lock)
6
7
8
9 Q12 16 BR Right front power window motor (up)
10 Q1 14 YL Master switch window lock out
11
12​

 

[Johnnie Walker]

Nice job. I plan on doing a late model swap on my XJ. But I have/want manual doors. So no need for all the extra shenanigans.
Question, is the TJ striker the same as XJ? Or is the bracket/striker different?

 

[COjeeper]

I first started with the window wires. I basically took the plug that had the yellow, tan, and black wire and I tied them to the same color wires coming from the chassis wiring. Now I don't claim to be a wiring wiz by any means, so go gentle on me when you see these pics. .!..!.

The Yellow wire is the window lock switch wire. It ties into the driver door and carries over to the passenger door through the chassis wiring. The Tan wire is the switch ignition feed that use to feed the old window switch and is now going to power the new window switch. The Black wire is a ground that was used for the old switch and will be used for the new switch too.



Then I moved onto the window motor wires. As you can see in this picture, you would think you could just match wire color with wire color, but you cannot. I started with the Right Front window wires. I tied the 2 BR/WHT wires together and the 2 VT/WHT wires together. The BR/WHT wire is the Up command for the window, the VT/WHT wire is the Down command.

Then I moved to the Left Rear window wires. I tied the RD/BK wire to the DB/WHT and then I tied the other DB/WHT wire to the other RD/BK wire. The RD/BK wire coming from the new door is the Down command and the DB/WHT wire coming form the new door is the Up command.

Lastly I went to the Right Rear window wires. I tied the DG/WHT wire to the GY/BK and then I tied the other DG/WHT wire to the other GY/BK wire. The DG/WHT wire coming form the new door is the Down command and the GY/BK wire coming from the new door is the UP command. The driver window wires are internal to the that door, so no wires to attach.



Here is a another pic, notice the 2 pink wires at the top. Those will come into play later. They were the power supply wires for the old driver and passenger side door lock switches.



That pretty much took care of the window wiring on the driver's side door, so on to the passenger side I went. There is no plug wires to hook up, so I just used male/female connectors to connect the wires from the new door to the chassis wiring on that side. The only 2 wires I had to hook up for the windows were the BR/WHT and the VT/WHT. BR/WHT to BR/WHT, and VT/WHT to VT/WHT. The Yellow wire is the window lock switch wire that was hooked up on the drivers side. Just need to connect the 2 YL wires together on the passenger side.







So since I was on the passenger side, I decide to do the speaker wiring. I cut the plug off the old door and wired it onto the new door. There is a DK BLU/RD (-) wire and a VT(+) wire coming from the plug that I tied to the LT BLU/RD(+) and the LT BLU/BK(-) wire on the new door.



Then back to the drivers side I went. I took the plug from the old door and wired it onto the new door. The DK GR(+) wire was tied to the GR(+) wire and the BR/RD(-) wire was tied to the BR/RD(-) wire.

 

[COjeeper]

Nice job. I plan on doing a late model swap on my XJ. But I have/want manual doors. So no need for all the extra shenanigans.
Question, is the TJ striker the same as XJ? Or is the bracket/striker different?

Thanks! I believe they are the same, I didn't see any difference in the two.

 

[COjeeper]

Ok, now that the windows and speakers were wired, I turned my efforts towards the power mirrors. For this I had to pull some wire from the drivers side kick panel to the passenger side kick panel. I used some 18 gauge 5 wire I had laying around. I only needed 3 wires, 4 if I wanted to power up the mirror defrost circuit. So I just left the 2 other wires incase I needed them down the road. I also needed to make a another wire harness too for the power door lock circuit since that needed to be a bigger wire size. So I made this wire harness, it consisted of a Yellow, Red and Black wire. 16 gauge for the Red and Black and 14 for the Yellow wire. I pulled them through a long piece of 3/8" shrink tube then heated the tube.



Once that was done, I pulled both under the dash behind the carpet to there respected places.





Then I proceeded to start the power mirror wiring on the driver's side. I used the Red, White, Blue and Black wire out of the 18-5 I pulled for the power mirror and saved the last wire as a spare. I ended up not using the defrost circuit wire, which is the BK/WHT wire on the passenger side door and the LT BLU/YL wire on the driver door. Instead I used the black wire out of the 18-5 as a power lead, but I will get more into that when I talk about the power lock wiring. Here is the 2 wires that will not be used.






With that being said, I took the OR/YL wire (common) and tied it to the Red wire from my 18-5 harness. Then I took the DK BLU (LT & RT) and tied it to the Blue wire 18-5 harness. Last but not least, I took the YL/BK (UP & DWN) wire and tied it to the White wire in the 18-5 harness.



Then back to the passenger side I went. I tied the same wires from the 18-5 harness to the same color wires I did on the driver's side. Red to OR/YL, Blue to DK BLU and White to YL/BK. The Black wire tied to the Lt Blue wire is used in the power lock circuit. That will get explained in the door lock wiring.




Now all that is left is the door lock wiring which I will explain tomorrow, its getting late tonight. :speepin:

 

[COjeeper]

Ok, back to the door lock wiring. I had a tough time trying to figure this one out, but after doing some research, it all made sense to me. On the late model doors, the door lock relays are built into the passenger door module. On my 95, the relays are found in a relay center shown below. The top left and bottom left relays are the door lock and unlock relays if my memory serves me correct.



I tried to figure out how to use my existing relays, but it seemed to much of a headache to do, so I just used the relays built into the passenger door module. In fact, I'm not sure if you can use your existing door lock relays. I'm sure you could, but like I said, it was kicking my arse. So I just used the relays in the passenger door module. With that being said, I needed to isolate the relays in the relay center. So I ended up cutting some wires and capping them. You could just pull the relays, but I needed the Green wire and Black wire for my power and ground. So I took the cover off the back of the relay box and located the wires I needed. If you look close you will see a PK/BK(18ga) wire, a LT GRN(18ga) wire, a BK(18ga) wire, a BK/WHT(18ga) wire, a OR/VT(20ga) wire and a PK/VT(20ga) wire that I ended up cutting.





Here is the 6 wires i cut and the 4 I capped. I originally didn't cut the LT GRN wire, but as I was trying to figure out the door lock circuit, I realized I needed another 12v+ source to the passenger door module that wasn't from a switched source, so I ended up cutting it and of course I didn't have enough wire, so i had to splice in a short (WHT) jumper wire. The other end of the WHT wire was tied to the BK wire from the 18-5 harness. The BK wire from the relay center was then tied into the BK wire from the YL, RD and BK harness I built.



Now that the wires were capped I turned my attention to the driver's side wiring. Here is the 4 wires on the driver's side that needed to be hooked up.



The OR/VT wire is a chassis harness wire and it connects to the OR/VT from the plug you cut out of the late model door. The BK/WHT from the chassis harness connects to the OR/BK wire coming from the plug cut out of the late model door. The PK/BK wire from the chassis harness is connected to the PK/BK wire coming from the plug out of the late model door. Last but not least, the PK/VT wire coming from the chassis harness is connected to the PK/VT wire coming from the plug out of the late model door. The picture below will give you a better understanding.



Basically the BK/WHT wire in the chassis harness is a travel leg between the 2 OR/BK wires coming from the late model doors. The OR/BK wire is the door lock output from the Passenger door module that feeds all the door lock motors. So The OR/BK wire on the driver's side door is the input, and the OR/BK wire on the passenger side is the output. If you are confused, join the club.

Now that you are totally confused, lets turn to the harness that I mentioned earlier that I built. You should have a Yellow, Red and Black wire on the driver side to hook up. Lets start with the Red wire, it is supplying a Fused Battery + to the Passenger door module. I tied mine into my power seat wire in my fuse panel as you can see in this pic.



If yours does not have this wire, just tie the Red wire from the harness you will make to a constant 12v+ source. Since I was lucky to have it, I just put a 25A fuse in and used it. According to the FSM wiring for the late model door, that is what the circuit requires.


I mentioned this already, but here it is again. I took the BK wire from my harness and tied it to the BK wire I cut from the relay center. You can kind of see it in this pic. I also took the YL wire from that harness and tied it into the TN wire in the pic. If you don't have the tan wire, which you should, just tie the YL wire to a switch power source.



Now I took the LT GRN wire I cut from the back of the relay and I tied it into the BK wire coming from the 18-5 wire harness. It is another power supply to the passenger door module.

So all you should have left on the driver's side to hook up is the YL/GN wire and a LT BLU/ YL wire. So as I mentioned earlier, the LT BLU/YL wire is the defrost circuit for the driver's side mirror. I just capped it off as I was not planning on using it.

Now that brings me to the last wire, the YL/GN wire. I should have mentioned it earlier, but I think fatigue was setting in at the time. Remember the 2 pink wires that were tied together earlier? In case you don't, here is a pic of them.



One of these is a 12v+ source, the other carries that12v+ source to the passenger side. I cut the wires into 2, then I ohmed out the 2 PK wires on the driver's side to the one on the passenger side. Once I figured out which one of the 2 on the driver's side went to the passenger side, I capped it at both sides. I took the remaining wire and tied it to the YL/GN wire. The YL/GN wire is the power source for the power mirrors in case i didn't mention that earlier as well.

Had I realized I needed another power source going to the passenger door module, I wouldn't have cut the LT GRN wire from the relay center and tied it to the BK wire in the 18-5 harness. Instead, I would have tied the other PK wire to it. Hind sight is 20/20 I guess.

So that should take care of all the wires on the driver's side. Lets move onto the passenger side.

 

[COjeeper]

Ok, now for the passenger side. You should have 10 wires left to connect. Remember the BK/WHT(20ga) wire is for the defrost circuit in the passenger mirror. I just capped mine off.

You should have a YL, RD and BK wire if you made a harness like I did. A DK BLU/VT wire, LT BL/RD wire, a OR/VT wire, a PK/VT wire, a PK/BK wire, a OR/BK wire and a LT BL wire. If you don't, retrace your steps.

I started with my homemade harness with the YL, RD and BK wire. I connected the YL from the harness I made to the TN wire coming from the new door harness. The TN wire is a 14ga wire and should be tied to a switched ignition source. All it does is power the lights on the passenger door module.

Next was the RD wire from my harness. I tied it to the RD wire from the new door harness. The RD wire from the new door harness needs to be tied to a constant 12v+ source. This is what I tied to my power seat circuit from the driver's side.

Then I tied the BK wire from my homemade harness to the BK wire coming from the new door harness. This is just a ground wire.





Next I tied the 2 OR/VT wires together and the 2 PK/VT wires together. The OR/VT wire coming from the chassis is the Lock output signal from the DDM. It ties into the other OR/VT wire going to the PDM which is an input. The PK/VT wire coming from the chassis is the Unlock output signal from the DDM. It ties into the other PK/VT wire going to the PDM which is an input.



Then I tied the PK/BK(18ga) from the chassis harness to the PK/BK(18ga) wire from the new door harness and the BK/WHT(18ga) wire from the chassis harness to the OR/BK(18ga) wire coming from the new door. The OR/BK coming from the new door is the Lock output wire from the PDM. The PK/BK wire from the new door is the Unlock output from the PDM.



Now you should have a DB/VT wire, LB/RD wire and LB wire left. The DB/VT and LB/RD go to your overhead console if you have a key less entry system. Mine did, but I did not connect them, I just capped them off.






So that brings us to the infamous LB wire. This is where I got hung up. It is the Key-In ignition switch sense wire. Before I connected this wire, I could unlock all my doors but could not lock them. This stumped me for a long time. I wasn't sure if it was suppose to get tied to a ground or a power source or what. I traced the circuit and found it tied into the ignition switch, head lamp switch and the door jam switches. It is part of the lock inhibit feature on the late model Cherokees. Basically the lock inhibit feature won't allow you to lock the doors if the driver door is open with the key in the ignition or with the headlamp switch in the On position.

So after some liquid courage and a long night of looking at wiring diagrams, I decided to connect that LB wire to the BK wire from my 18-5 wire harness which I stated earlier was tied into the LT GN(12v+) wire from the relay panel. I mean, what could happen, right? Worse case I would just pop a fuse. Low and behold it didn't and the locks worked. You would have thought I won the lottery after hearing the doors lock and unlock. I was happier then a fly on dog sh!t.

:cheers:

 

[1DogRescuer]

THIS is a Terrific, Thorough Write-Up. THANKS ! It did, however, discourage me to the point of deciding against the swap. Mainly because of the big hole in the jamb for the striker catch. Bummer.
Wanted to lose the fixed [vent] windows so badly.

That brings me to a new question for my fellow enthusiasts:
Anyone know if the glass and regulator ONLY will swap from 2nd Gen. into 1st Gen. ?

 

[nik-nak]

Great write up and great information! Thanks for taking the time to do this. Picking up a set of doors from a 97' for my 87' this weekend! This is exactly what i was looking for!

 

[nik-nak]

Great write up and great information! Thanks for taking the time to do this. Picking up a set of doors from a 97' for my 87' this weekend! This is exactly what i was looking for!

 

[BasslicksXJ]

Thanks so much for your time and effort in both the swap and the writeup. It's exactly what I've been searching for. I found the article in JP magazine, but just like you I was still puzzled on exactly what I was supposed to be doing with the wires in their pinout.

 

[IllianaXJ]

THIS is a Terrific, Thorough Write-Up. THANKS ! It did, however, discourage me to the point of deciding against the swap. Mainly because of the big hole in the jamb for the striker catch. Bummer.
Wanted to lose the fixed [vent] windows so badly.

That brings me to a new question for my fellow enthusiasts:
Anyone know if the glass and regulator ONLY will swap from 2nd Gen. into 1st Gen. ?

I would be interested in this information also. I don't really want to swap doors but I hate the fixed triangle window in my 95.

 

[COjeeper]

Great write up and great information! Thanks for taking the time to do this. Picking up a set of doors from a 97' for my 87' this weekend! This is exactly what i was looking for!

Thanks so much for your time and effort in both the swap and the writeup. It's exactly what I've been searching for. I found the article in JP magazine, but just like you I was still puzzled on exactly what I was supposed to be doing with the wires in their pinout.

Your welcome! I'm glad someone else besides me could benefit from it. If you have questions, feel free to pm me. :cheers:

 

[ftwelder]

Nice tech!

 

[COjeeper]

Nice tech!

Thanks man! :greensmok

 

[burntkat]

Not bad, but you should have soldered instead of using butt connectors.

 

[COjeeper]

Not bad, but you should have soldered instead of using butt connectors.

Ya, I realized it after it was all done. :doh:

 

[Bent]

Not bad, but you should have soldered instead of using butt connectors.

Certified Solder freak here!

COjeeper great writeup. Thanks for all the extra time and effort you put into this project just so you could share it here.