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I just can't take winter anymore!!! YUK YUK YUK YUK!!!!

So this weekend I cleaned the salt crud outa the garage, and today I went home early from work (sick like a dog... cough. cough) and am stating to take my jeep apart.

Dann helped me hoist the top up to the rafters, so now it's officially "topless season"


And then I brought her around to my side to take care of some details before summer gets here for real.
It was either that, or bring the bus home, and it won't fit in the garage!

So the first thing on the list is this spare tire carrier, it's just embarrassing. I'll test my new sandblaster on it.


Finally for now, I've been trying for nearly a year to get the doors off this thing. The hinge pins are threaded, and you can see these round sleeves thru the hinge, they do turn with the pins. No sign of any nut or fastener or anything else I could put a tool on. I've tried turning the round thing with a vise grip, no go. I've sprayed PB blaster till I ran out, repeatedly, month after month.

How the heck do I get the doors off this thing?

Gently try to drive them out with a drift?

well, it appears that you spray them with PB Blaster, and wiggle while pulling up for a long long time. Got the pass side off, now for the drivers side.

back out here again. Ya, jeeps are kinda boring, but it keeps me out of trouble. Spring is giving us a bit of a tease the last week or so, including te,mps almost to 50 today and 50 something promised for later in the week.

Anyway, tonight is American Idol night, and that means I'm out here in the shop messin with my toy. I got both doors off, got 'er up on stands and pulled all four wheels, took off the front fender flares, and am currently doing some washing. I have a few rust issues I want to address, including these spots in the front fenders.


and this spot under the tailgate

The corner is actually bad too, crushed and bent, then filled with too much bondo, which is now cracking and threatening to fall off. Right now, all I plan is tyo hit that rust with the grinder, por15, andf some duplicolor in a spray bomb. We'll see.

There is also some nasty rust on the windshield hinges. That's the main reason I wanted the doors off, the windshield hinge is also the upper doior hinge. I'll pull these off one at a time, clean them and under them, por15, prime and duplicolor the whole mess and reassemble.


Also on the list is a 2" lift with new springs and shocks, mostly hoping the rougth country progressive springs will give me a smoother ride.
Also will replace some weepy pinion seals and a leaky trans pan gasket.

I'm pretty sure my clunk clunk on take off is bad motor mounts so I'll be replacing them and the trans mount.

I have a decent tan soft top that goes with the full doors, but it's getting old, and the PO did something weird with a zipper, so I can't roll up the back window. New back window is on the list.

And really, a jeep needs the half doors, canvas windows, and the top that goes withg them (completely different from mine with full doors and rollup windows) so those are on the list, but gawd they are expensive.

Of course, the garage cam is on, and the link in my sig works. user team p/w camaro as always.
Join me if you wanna

Hey Chip are you going to fix it right or just leave it rusty.When you blast stay back a bit or you will end up with a smart car.

Jim, you gave me a laugh when I saw your comment about the doors not coming off. Sorry I was late to the game here, I would have told you the easy way, but you figured it out. lol
I've been through several wranglers over the years. And from the looks of it, yours is rustier than most. Clearly it was a plow truck, but they must have parked it in the salt pile year round. lol

IMO opinion, the best of both worlds for doors is the Bestop soft door set. http://www.quadratec.com/products/11144_XX_PG.htm I had them on one of my last YJs. I had a set of half hard doors, and full hard doors and sold them all after I never went back to them after these. Yes they are $$, but so is everything that is in the wrangler world. lol.

I wish you the best of luck getting the windshield hinges off. Have you even tried folding it yet.

I've not tried folding it, but when I first got it, it had these brackets for some sort of "rooftop carrier"
The front ones bolted to the upper part of the windshield hinges. So those 4 bolts have been pulled out by me last year.

The lower bolts are another story. Painted in with green factory paint and never touched in 11 years and 223,000 miles. I tried rattling one with an impact, broke the torx bit off in it, so I'll have ta deal with that, too.

And yes, she was a plow truck, I sold the 6'6" meyers plow for a grand.

Did you buy a hood when you bought that blaster? I wear one everytime I fire mine up and a respirator too!

it came with a hood.