We sold our Ford Expedition last...when ever it was so my wife in the winter doesn't have a lot of options because I put the snow plow on the truck and she hates driving it with the plow and I typically take the Focus to work so that leaves her the Jeep because the CS is not available in winter. We've never had a hard top so I decided to start looking based on her...well complaints about the soft top.

Found a hard top, excellent condition and two full doors, no rust good condition, we only had half doors with vinyl uppers. So here is the project, the doors are gold and have some dings and holes from mirrors so I decide it isn't worth investing in body shop repairs as it's just a "Jeep Thing" so I decide to grind, weld, bondo and paint the things myself in the garage, (NO SHOP YET, did get the stamped plans yesterday however). So I do all the body work and get some "High Quality Rattle Can" white paint, not sure there is such a thing but anyway I picked what I thought was good, painted some samples to see how well it would match the Jeep white, felt pretty good about the match and then sanded all the way down to 600 grit wet and dry and painted away. See the picture for results, turned out smooth as silk. One door down one door to go. And no I won't rattle can the CS, but I will do my own body work on welding the holes from the incorrect "California Special" emblems.

Looks good Cory. I understand your wife's concerns. I was borrowing a friends Jeep when I lived in Portland while I was rebuilding the engine in my '72 Mach 1. During one of their ice storms, someone stole the doors off it. I froze my butt off driving to work in the sleet with no doors and a soft top. :eek:

Steve

I figured for the price of a few sheets of sandpaper and a couple of cans of paint I wouldn't be out much if my tallent wasn't good enough to make it work. The wife approved when she saw it and she's the pickiest person I know. I bought a topper for my truck and my truck is an F250 white with the gold along the bottom, the topper was already gold so I thought perfect. I thought it looked awesome and she says they are two different colors and it bugs the heck out of her??? The golds aren't even next to each other so what gives. Anyway if she thinks this paint job looks good it passes.

On a side note, does anyone know much about keying locks? The doors don't have keys and I'd like to get them keyed the same as the Jeep ignition key so I can lock them so they don't get stolen like yours Steve. Can they key them the same or do I need to get them different? Can they make a key for the current locks that are on the doors? What's my best option and what are the costs?

You can get keys made for the doors, or have everything keyed alike, but if the aftermarket for Jeeps is anything like Mustangs, it's probably cheaper to buy new locks in a set and just replace everything.

I wonder how easy they are to replace? I'll go get some prices from Quadratech.