Canvas doors?

[Tim Smith]

Those screen doors keep reminding me of this image for some reason. Does that mean something?

[KevinNY]

Badger makes soft door tops.

[Leslie]

I have been looking for bad skin doors in order to use the frames since I first saw them.

Problem is, you usually have the frames rot before the skin....

[jac04]

Badger makes soft door tops.

I contacted them for additional info. I'll let you know what I find out. My last restoration used a Badger soft top, so I'm expecting excellent quality and a corresponding price. I would love a set in tan canvas to match my desert tan paint job. We'll see what happens.

[thixon]

I'm still not clear on why you'd want canvass door tops or whole doors. With the doors, is the possibility of quick release to go doorless?

FWIW, my experience with soft door tops on a jeep is that they always leak air, water, and the zip out windows always tear up at the zipper. And yes, I mean much more leakage than is normal with original equipment rover door tops and doors!

[amcordo]

When you remove the aluminum skin from the door frame does it permanently damage the aluminum? Does anyone make replacement galvanized frame parts to swap out old corroded ones? Just curious.

[thixon]

When you remove the aluminum skin from the door frame does it permanently damage the aluminum? Does anyone make replacement galvanized frame parts to swap out old corroded ones? Just curious.

If you do it right...no. It doesn't hurt to anneal before you remove them, but it can be done without doing so first. Most will tell you that you need a special set of pliers, or some other such tool, but you don't. You can do it with a normal set of pliers, a chisel, and re-install with a hammer and dolly.

Oh yeah, it also depends on the condition of the skins. If they're badly corroded at the bottom, give it up.

If you want to try it, and need some help, PM me, and I'll walk you through it.

Our hosts sell a kit to rebuild the bottom section of the door frames (requires welding).

[KingSlug]

You can heat the Al to make it more maleable. See green bible under body repair.

Jared

[thixon]

You can heat the Al to make it more maleable. See green bible under body repair.

Jared

Jared,

be careful just "heating" it. Too much and you'll warp the daylights out of the panel. To correctly anneal a 5000 series alum alloy (what birmabright is), it needs to be heated to about 650F, then allowed to cool back down (don't quench it!). You can get crayons at your local welding shop that melt at various temps. Those are great. just mark up the panel, and heat till the crayons melt.

Me, I'm too thick skulled to do it the right way, so here's a trick, but I make no warranties. You can put a good layer of soot on what you're trying to anneal with just acetylene. Then crank up the O2, and start heating the panel. Once it gets to around 600 to 700, the soot will burn off (begin to dissapear). If you try this, be careful. There's a thin line between too much heat (warp city), and burning off the soot.

[SafeAirOne]

I haven't re-skinned my doors yet (replacement doorskins are pretty cheap), but isn't there a sealant/insulator between the aluminum and the steel framework? I ask, because I saw them use a sealant-type stuff in a write-up about re-skinning the doors in an old issue of LRM or LRW. I just don't know if the factory did this on the original doors. If so, it'll probably have an impact on the re-usablility of the old skins.

BTW--Strangely, I was just thinking about a similar canvas door thing a few weeks ago, right before this thread came out. I envisioned a custom-made wire-mesh door, generally similar to the one pictured earlier in this thread. There would be curtain fasteners on the interior side of the doors, so that if the weather went to heck you could wrap a canvas cover around the outside of the mesh door and fasten the canvas to the curtain fasteners on the interior side of the door.

Like so:

[Momo]

This might be totally useless given the original question, but I run my 109 pickup without top and doors for part of the year and it's really nice. Unless you have sudden thunderstorms in the warm months or the temp dips low on summer nights, I don't think fabricating canvas doors is worth the trouble.

I have seen canvas doors on an 88 once. The door frame was actually steel rod for the horizontal runs, and the vertical components were the standard Rover door assembly. The guy who owned it swore they were some kind of factory piece, maybe some military part from SA or AUS or other arid/tropical climate. They didn't look home built. I didn't have a camera phone at the time and I've never seen the guy since. But anyhow, maybe they are out there. Search overseas LR forums, you might find someone who can provide reference photos.

[SafeAirOne]

This might be totally useless given the original question, but I run my 109 pickup without top and doors for part of the year and it's really nice. Unless you have sudden thunderstorms in the warm months or the temp dips low on summer nights, I don't think fabricating canvas doors is worth the trouble.

I don't know about the original poster, but that's the only reason I'd want the canvas covers.

I run my 109 without doortops in the summer too, though I keep the doortops in the back so I can just slip them in when it rains. They rattle around a bit, just sitting in the holes, but you stay slightly drier than no door tops.

[Momo]

Mark, I take the entire door off, not just the tops. I'm pretty sure it shaves a second or two off my quarter mile.

[scott]

i know i said i had given some thought to canvas doors, and i did think the steel mesh ones were cool but i have run without doors. done it in the rain, done it in the cold. and i guess being the lazy a$$ i am i will never make a canvas or mesh doors. i'll just take the doors off in another month or so and leave 'em off 'til the frost hits the pumpkins

[SafeAirOne]

I used to go doorless when I had an 88, but in a 5-door 109, I just don't think it looks right.