takin off the doors!

[bluethunder]

the other day i decided to try one of my wild ideas and see if i could take the doors off my explorer. i decided i would try to get the driver's door first, just to kinda see whether it could be done or not. well you really only have to unbolt 4 bolts to detach the door from the body. the problem is there are gizillion wires that are still going from the door to the car. i figured this would be a problem before i even started removing the door, but i was really more concerned about getting the door itself off first. anyway, i really didnt have time to mess with the wires so i just put the door back on. be aware that if you ever take your door off and put it back on, it probably wont line up correctly the first time. when i put my door back on there was a big gap between the weather stripping and the inside of the door. so i had to unbolt some of the top bolts and readjust it. its fine now, but just remember to check that if you ever decide to take it off. i really do not know what to do about the wires in the door, i really dont want to spend money just so i can remove it, but if anybody has any ideas ($$ cheap) that could work to make my wires quickly disconnectable then please share them!! by the way...i know that removing the doors is probably illegal, but it would be nice for wheelin.
-jonathan

 

[mattadams]

You can find quick disconnects anywhere. Hell, depending on how many wires there are you can take a power disconnect from a power supply from an old PC that has 15-20 wires or so, and use that. Would require a bit of time but once you got it done you could just unplug and plug back in. By the way, if you didn't have power doors, power locks, and power mirrors you wouldn't have to worry about all those wires .

 

[rpenner54]

I know there are more then 10 wires going in. There is a quick disconect right inside the door frame but I don't know if its possible to disconect it or not.

 

[jimbo74]

it is not illegal to operate the car without doors....as long as you put on mirrors...

jeeps do it all the time...they just have mirrors mounted to the winshield cowl/pillars

 

[BoatsRcool]

yeah but jeeps have that extra door space below the door, before they reach the actual floor.

 

[BoatsRcool]

I think It would be cool to make soft doors. It would be easy I think. Just bend some metal, and get your mommy to sew

 

[Perry]

Inside the door panel there are disconnects for your wire. For the back door it is in the post. You just need to take the interior post off.

 

[Raceit]

I guess you really wouldn't want to go muddin with the doors off.

Although that's a tantalizing possiblity for me. Having an XL model, I've got manual everything. No wires for me!

...and actually I have seen a Jeep Cherokee driving around my town with no doors. ..and no mirrors. But half the vehicles are missing mirrors anyway that I see.

 

[BoatsRcool]

cool well. lets see. how can I take the door panel off to get to the dissconnect thing. And how do I take the back panel off over the rear wheel wells.

 

[Perry]

Originally posted by BoatsRcool
cool well. lets see. how can I take the door panel off to get to the dissconnect thing. You
You don't have to take the door panel off. The wire dissconnect thing is inside the Explorer kick panel. Drivers side it's behind the emergancy break and pass. side it's behind the silver box.
And how do I take the back panel off over the rear wheel wells.

Why do you need to take the back panel off? For the back doors the dissconnect thing is in the post. You could keep the panel on.
When we repainted our Explorer we had the doors off. It looks pretty funny if you ask me.

 

[BoatsRcool]

i would be interested in making half doors and relocating the lock etc. anyway, i need to get the back panel off because im installing a DC plug.

 

[BoatsRcool]

i still want to do this.. how can i get the front door panel off enough to get to this dissconnect perry is talking about.

 

[Randall]

You guys should check out Rick's thread on half-doors:

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[Ryan1]

hey about those doors....id be interested, what was your Idea for the design.

anything like the fiberglass inserts you can buy for the older model bronco's.....kinda U shaped.


Ryan

 

[Randall]

I believe that that is t he way they will look. You might want to check with Rick or post at the thread I linked to above to find out for sure. IT is really Rick's animal.

 

[tac0meat]

beat yall to it heres my chopped doors on my chopped top sport:

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ya right i wish, it was a pic posted on here a while back, some concept vehicle or somethin

 

[BislamJoe]

that concept sport or whatever it is is phat, man. I wish Ford would produce something like that with a soft top as a Wrangler-fighter. Give it a 5.0L, Atlas 2, 9", and D44. This sounds good enough to e-mail FoMoCo.

 

[Gone Jeepin]

I took the doors off my grand cherokee. If photopoint's working you can take a look. It's probably similar to the explorer, but there were two plugs inside the car, I unpluged them and then pulled them out of a hole in the unibody (damn unibody) The law (at least in california) is that you have to have to have 2 mirrors and ONE needs to be the rear view mirror on the windshield. Doors are not required, other places a 5" lip between the floor and where it exits is required. I would definetly do it if I had an explorer cause you probably won't tweak the body. I never ran no doors on the trail cause I'm scared of my unibody folding in half. On another note, I don't think that concept sport has a chance in hell of coming off the assembly line with solid axles.
-Nate

 

[BoatsRcool]

aw man your photopoint isn working.

 

[BislamJoe]

Yeah, I know it'll never happen. Hell, they probably wouldn't even produce it in any form. But we can dream. Or maybe I can find the remains of a first-generation Sport, mount up a Dana 44, AOD (or T-5...), 5.0, and Atlas 2... wait, i need money for that. more importantly, i'm spending that money on my truck (the one I already have)