I've decided to build my own set of tube doors since nobody currently makes any. I'm going to use 2" by .120" wall HREW steel for the doors with home made latches. I got 40' of steel Friday and miscellaneous other parts for the latches/ speakers etc. I'm following Cubuff's design. Now onto the pics...
Car with tarp where doors used to be (about to rain)


Mock-up of front doors


Door latch parts


1 of 4 10ft. pieces of steel


It's going to take me a while to get these done (have exams soon). I don't have access to a welder until I get home, so for now I'm just trying to get the mock-ups perfect and the steel cut into the pieces I need.

 

looks good man, sorry i didn't get back to you on uy, i've been busy as hell. pm me on here with some more details, time frame, cost, etc. and depending on those i very well may take you up on it.

 

cant wait to see the results

 

I decided to change the design of the front door (top) to match the rear door


I also picked up one a cheap miter saw and some steel blades to help with cutting angles

 

Are you making both front and rear doors? I can see the use for the front, but the back just seems kinda useless imo..

 

I'm doing both front and rear doors. The rears don't have as much purpose, but i don't like the look when only the fronts are tube doors and the rears are the stock ones. Plus, when I bought steel, I had to order a certain amount. The difference between the minimum and what I would need for all 4 doors wasn't much, so I figured why not. Plus its not like I would have control over the rear door windows since all my controls would be gone.

 

Keep us updated. I want to see them. What are you going to do about rain once the tube doors are on?

 

*subscribed*

 

can't wait to see how this goes...good luck on exams.

 

Well, that just gives me a reason to get some Wet Okole seat covers. I will still be able to put the stock doors back on, my main plan is to monitor the weather so I can have a somewhat educated guess (depending on how much you trust a weather forecast) and to put on/ swap the tube doors whenever the weather is going to be nice (this is what I did when I had a wrangler and it worked pretty well)

 

How about speakers...it might not matter to some, but I like listening to music while driving down the road or on the trail. Any plans to relocate or add a speaker or two so you'll have something to listen to while the tube doors are on?

Buddy of mine added a 6.5" speaker to both front kick panels so he'd have something to listen to while his doors where off. Just and idea.

But if this is not a concern of yours, then ignore my question . Looking forward to seeing the finished pics!

 

I put some marine speakers in the tube door and they have worked great so far..You can see them in the corner of the tube door on this pic. I have been rained on about 5 times so far and you don't get as wet as you think you would, but you just get sprayed with a fine mist. I need windshield wipers on the inside. I look forward to seeing the outcome..

 

mosssyrocks made some tube doors. Didn't know if ya saw em or not.

 

I have a few pairs of old cheap speakers laying around, most in the 6.5" size. I plan on mounting them to the doors, but haven't actually figured out how i'm going to mount them yet. I would hate to drive without music.

 

I dunno, 6.5" seems a little large to mount somewhere on the tube door itself. Unless of course you do some sort of plate like mosssyrocks did in the above picture and maybe mount the speakers to that.

Like I said earlier though, mounting them in the kick panels below also works really good too.

cubuff4runner, you got any closer up pictures to show how you mounted your speakers on the tubes?

 

I can't find any good closeup pics. I zoomed in on this one and put a red circle where the speaker is and yellow dots where I screwed it into the tubes.
Here is a pic where you can see the top of the speaker.


I would make sure that you use a marine speaker.. All you need is one rain storm and they get soaked. If you have a paper cone it will be demolished.

 

Let me start off by saying I'm not trying to critique your design too much, just playing devil's advocate here . You may want to reconsider your design...or at least the fronts for that matter. I do see you point in wanting to design the front doors to match the rears, but as you can see on both cubuff's 4Runner & mosssyrocks' 4Runner, they chose to design the top tube on both front tube doors to arch down as to allow the driver as much room to lean out of the vehicle without sacrificing safety. I don't know how much "lean out" your design will offer, but it stands to reason you'd get more if you bent the top tube down instead of leaving it straight across.

Now granted, if you don't need that much accessibility, then I'd stick with your current design.


EDIT: Nice pic too cubuff of your speakers .

 

My plan was to put some metal to cover the triangular area near where the mount are so i could mount speakers there. As for the design, if you look at mossy's doors, my tube that runs straight across would run from the center of the mounting bracket, inbetween the 2 bolts, so it would actually be a little lower except for where the bend is in his tube.

 

Cool, I see what you mean. That ought to suffice. As long as you have enough "lean out" then you should be good.

Oh and got any plans for side view mirrors?

 

I was just going to pick up a cheap mirror from advance, nothing special. Haven't given much though as where to mount it though