You can see just how thick these doors are, but the metal frame is only between the green arrows. I need to have the metal frame as close to the dash, where the red arrow is pointing, as possible to narrow up the front of the cab. So everything forward of the red arrow will not be used and the metal frame needs to replace the plastic door panel.
The rear of the door will get the same treatment to keep the window parallel with the outside of the body. The lock is actually as wide as the electric window mechanism.
With the door panel off you can see it is only the speaker that sticks into the door panel area. That can be easy replaced with a shallower one or fitted elsewhere.
See how much smaller the actual door opening is compared the metal door frame this attaches too. I will probably only be able to use the arm rest with the door lock and window switch in it from the panel.
I really would like to use the the whole panel that the window mechanism is mounted too. But two things have to be overcome first and that is the guide rails need to be at 90* to the bottom of the door to suit the Willys vertical upper window frames.
Secondly is the the Willys windows are flat and not curved like the SRT8. So the first thing I will do is make sure I can straighten the window guide rails.
Starting at one end first to see how it goes, I cut the side out of the mounting pad so that could be flattened. Just squashing it flat with the side in place would cause it to distort sideways. To remove the curve in the guide rails, we need to stretch the bottom half of the vertical flange as pictured. The green area should be left alone.
I used my bolsters, top of picture, to stretch right in the bottom corner of the flange. I also used a shrinker/stretcher on the lip edge as this needs to remain straight as well.
As you can see the guide rail now is perfectly flat to suit the Willys window glass.
I had to cut and reshape some of the plastic panel so I could turn the rails to vertical. It was tricky to get just the right position to keep the cables out of the way of the panel contours. Another problem was that the carriages that the glass slots into, ended up at different heights. So one cable had to be shortened and the other lengthened. Shortening was done by tig welding a small nut onto the end of the cable once it was cut the right length. To make the cable longer I was able to use a cable left over from the Grand Cherokee's electric window system that was then cut to length. Both cables had to be just right to make it level, but also hold the right amount of tension. When it comes time to do the other door, I will use a bicycle rear brake cable as it is the same diametre as I don't have any more cable long enough from the Grand Cherokee.
I ground the edge of the door skin to remove enough to see how narrow I can make the door frame and still clear everything. The door was perfect without even a scratch on it, so really hope I can use parts from it now!
It shows promise as looks like I can half the total thickness of the door and door panel to make it about 100mm/4" thinner. Also notice how much the top of the window sill gets taller compared to the laser line. The skin was cut parallel to the window sill. The Willys raises up less across both doors and rear quarter than this does in one door! It would make for a cool wedge section if I follow it.
This is the steel that reinforces the front of the Willys door that the hinges attach too, and shows the outside profile of the door. By tilting it in one degree more than stock to get the desired angle for the window frame, and the bottom spaced out to clear the eventual chassis rail position, there is enough clearance to take the new door width once it has been narrowed and moved in towards the dash. The donors door hinges behind it show just how much wider the SRT8 doors sit out from here.
