Any advice on installing full doors?

Moab

Moab

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I found a set of full doors to replace my half doors. Any advice or anything I should do when installing them? I figured some sort of white lithium grease or something to keep them lubed up. And not rusting tight. Do they need aligned or anything?

I have not attempted to remove my half doors. But since they were replacements and I'm in Southern California weather. I'm hoping they'll slide right off.
 
A little white lithium grease on the hinge pins is all you need. They should line up as they are but if they don't, make sure you only slightly loosen the hinge bolts on the door itself, just loose enough so the door can be moved around until they're centered in the opening. Don't loosen the hinge bolts on the tub which would screw up how the half-doors fit.
 
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Jerry Bransford said:
A little white lithium grease on the hinge pins is all you need. They should line up as they are but if they don't, make sure you only slightly loosen the hinge bolts on the door itself, just loose enough so the door can be moved around until they're centered in the opening. Don't loosen the hinge bolts on the tub which would screw up how the half-doors fit.
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Thanks, Jerry! That's what I figured from all my reading.

Any reason to keep the half doors? I really don't like them. They aren't original to the Jeep. I don't see myself putting them back on. I'm to tall for them to give a decent elbow rest. I don't like how they look. Or how the window operates. And a bunch of other reasons. I'm hoping to sell them and offset some of the cost of the full doors. And not finding any excuses to save them.
 
One tip if you have to adjust the hinges on the door is to use heat. I didn't know that the torx bolts have some sort of lock-tite on them from the factory. I used a breaker bar to adjust my half doors and ended up badly gouging the "hinge plate" part of the door. Every time a bolt broke free I couldn't control where the breaker bar went and I ended up grinding the end of the torx bit into the door, ruining the paint. The lock-tite that holds the torx bolts in is easily defeated by heat.
 
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moab said:
Thanks, Jerry! That's what I figured from all my reading.

Any reason to keep the half doors? I really don't like them. They aren't original to the Jeep. I don't see myself putting them back on. I'm to tall for them to give a decent elbow rest. I don't like how they look. Or how the window operates. And a bunch of other reasons. I'm hoping to sell them and offset some of the cost of the full doors. And not finding any excuses to save them.
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If you plan to take your Jeep offroad here in SoCal I'd consider keeping the half-doors. Half-doors are a pleasure to wheel with when compared to the heavy full doors. I ended up selling the full doors I bought new later because I thought I'd like them better. My half-doors aren't original to my TJ either and in fact they need a different key to open but I don't really care. :)
 
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Jerry Bransford said:
If you plan to take your Jeep offroad here in SoCal I'd consider keeping the half-doors. Half-doors are a pleasure to wheel with when compared to the heavy full doors. I ended up selling the full doors I bought new later because I thought I'd like them better. My half-doors aren't original to my TJ either and in fact they need a different key to open but I don't really care. :)
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Jerry I too found a set of half doors to fit my tj and following a youtube video changed the tumblers to match my original key. Wasen't as bad as I thought it would be.
 
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Bamacon said:
Jerry I too found a set of half doors to fit my tj and following a youtube video changed the tumblers to match my original key. Wasen't as bad as I thought it would be.
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Where did you find the replacement tumblers? I've rekeyed door locks with kits from Home Depot and would like to do that with my half door locks.
 
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SO I'm about to take my half doors off. (I don't think they are locktited as they are not original to the Jeep.) Any advice on taking them off?
 
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They should just lift off after removing the nuts. If not, PB Blaster, Moove It, WD40.... And maybe a hammer tap.

IF you do sell them, ask at least as much as full doors sell for. There is a real demand for them. If they are factory half doors, they are priceless to the right guy.
 
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I’ve seen full doors around here for $1450, which is extremely high, and they are usually $950 for a nice set. Half doors are usually in the $700 range.
 
moab said:
SO I'm about to take my half doors off. (I don't think they are locktited as they are not original to the Jeep.) Any advice on taking them off?
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It’s not complicated. Just carefully remove the two nuts on the hinge pins and lift the doors out with the hinges and pins attached to the door
 
SO here's some pics of my hinges on my half doors that I want to remove. It looks like to me that all I have left are the pins that go into the hinges. However neither door will budge. I can rock the whole Jeep pulling up and down on the doors. These are second hand doors - not original. So I doubt they are locktited from the factory. I'm going to PB Blast them and try again tomorrow.

Any other advice? Am I missing anything here? I can see some rust. So maybe that's what's holding them in. Obviously not a good job on the PO's part at keeping them lubed. If they were ever lubed at all.

I think after I PB Blast them I'll move the door back and forth alot. And then try pulling up at various locations along its turning radius.

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There's literally no other advice I can give you aside from the fact that you're doing to have to use all your might to remove them. When you put the new doors in, make sure to grease the inserts so that you'll never have trouble removing them again. I went so far as to put a very light coat of axle grease on mine.
 
moab said:
SO here's some pics of my hinges on my half doors that I want to remove. It looks like to me that all I have left are the pins that go into the hinges. However neither door will budge. I can rock the whole Jeep pulling up and down on the doors. These are second hand doors - not original. So I doubt they are locktited from the factory. I'm going to PB Blast them and try again tomorrow.

Any other advice? Am I missing anything here? I can see some rust. So maybe that's what's holding them in. Obviously not a good job on the PO's part at keeping them lubed. If they were ever lubed at all.

I think after I PB Blast them I'll move the door back and forth alot. And then try pulling up at various locations along its turning radius.

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Grab the door as close as you can to the hinges. Open the door perpendicular to the Jeep. While pulling up slowly swing the the door back and forth in big slow swings while pulling up at same time. The hinges will separate little by little. Spray some pb blaster inbetween as it separates. It will come off.
 
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Also when I took off my full doors and put on half doors they didn’t just drop in. I greased the pin and sprayed wd40 in the receiving hole. I had to do same same method working the doors down as I did removing them.
 
Well I hit them with PBB. And then tapped them with a BFH and they moved about a quarter of an inch. SO I have high hopes for tomorrow. One was a little tighter. But it still moved a bit. I swung the doors back and forth a few times to get the PBB in there good. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

And yes, I'm going to lube the shit out of the new full doors going in. Nice thing about them is the pins are nice and clean you can see they were always well lubed and taken care of. I might even run a brass brush or similar thru the hinges before I put the new ones on. Just to get rid of as much rust as I can. (Just thought of this idea. How about a brass brush for a firearm? I have a ton of old ones for AK's that might fit perfectly. I'll scrub the holes out good. Once I get the doors off.)

Can't believe no one lubed these. They were put in at a bodyshop to for one of the PO's.

Where do I get the star nuts that go on the bottom of the pins? And what are they called/model number?
 
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Well the doors pulled right off. After letting the PB Blaster sit overnight. Amazing stuff. But now there's this problem.

Passenger door sits perfect and closes perfect. The drivers side door however is about a good quarter inch to low. If I push up on the door frame as I close it - it will close. But then the hinges raise up the same distance to make it fit. Might even be closer to 1/3". If I had the nuts on the ends of the hinge pins it wouldn't close for sure.

Are the hinges on the door adjustable? If I loosen them is there any play in there I can adjust with? What if I beat on the top of the door mechanism that takes the gold square into itself? (Not sure what the technical terms are.) Or do I need to go to a bodyshop? How screwed am I?

EDIT - I'm going to make this it's own thread. I really need some help here.

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Yes, there is some adjustment on the hinges. loosen the 3 torx sqrews on each hinge and make your adjustments. By the looks of your torx screws, that may be a challenge.
 
bobthetj03 said:
Yes, there is some adjustment on the hinges. loosen the 3 torx sqrews on each hinge and make your adjustments. By the looks of your torx screws, that may be a challenge.
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Is there really that much play in there to be had? Seems like the screws would have to move a good 1/4" to 1/3" to make the door fit.

Ya. Alot of the torx screws on this ride are a bit messed up. I think it's the salt air. This Jeep has lived most of its life in Socal less than 10 miles from a beach. And I live less than a mile from the beach. That and it's just dirty as hell. While doing all this work on it. I haven't bothered to wash it in several weeks. I just got WD40 all over it this afternoon. And PB Blaster before that.
 
Yes, there really is quite a bit of adjustment. I was surprised myself when I was trying to adjust my door to cure a water leak.
 
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