Half Door Project Part 1 - Acquisition
Shortly after purchasing the Jeep I began the hunt for a set of half doors for it. Knew that a color matched set in good condition would be a unicorn, so I settled into my routine of checking a variety of online marketplaces to see what options presented themselves. Wasn't in a rush so didn't feel the need to overpay and was not afraid of buying a set in a different color and have the painted - which increased the options available. Set a ballpark search radius of roughly 3 hours around my house - again, mostly to see what was available out there.
I ended up finding a set on FB Marketplace an hour from my parent's house (just inside my 3 hour radius) so I combined a trip to visit them with the trip to go purchase the doors. They weren't advertised specifically but were part of one of those "Jeep parts" or "Jeep TJ parts" kinda listings that had a variety of stuff that someone is usually trying to clear out of their garage. And that is exactly what the seller was looking to do - but I only wanted the doors.
Upon arrival, the first thing I noticed was his Jeep...a pretty nice YJ all dressed up to go hunt dinosaurs.
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I honestly don't recall if he used to have a TJ before this and that is why he had these doors....or if he accidentally bought them for this project thinking they would fit. But he had them and wanted them gone, so for $200 I ended up with them, knowing that they would need some work. They hadn't been abused on the trails and the inner door cards were intact, so not a bad start.
Here's what I started with (photos taken after I got them back home).
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The surface rust on the face of the passenger door didn't concern me much, but I wasn't all that sure how repairable the rust at the pinch weld on the bottom of that door was going to be. And of course they are so close but oh so far to the matching color of my '05.So paint and bodywork, here I come!
Using a VIN decoder online, they appear to have come off a '99 TJ.
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No uppers and no mirrors, but they did also come with a zip lock bag of hardware, fastners, bits and pieces. More on that later.
I got a set of half doors a year or so ago in similar condition for a similar price. Used and needing some TLC but not abused. Still debating on if I want to paint them myself or just have a shop do it for convenience since I paid so little. If you have a decent HVLP gun, paint isn’t really that hard, just time consuming.
