Remove Your Doors

When it is nice and sunny outside, your Jeep can be converted from a square box with a noisy roof into a four-wheeled motorcycle with seatbelts. It might not be quite as stylish as a Harley, nor can you drive it with a hottie clinging mercilessly to your back, but your Jeep is an outdoor fun vehicle that will make everyone stare in jealousy on a beautiful day if you would just take the time to drop the top and pull the doors off of it.

Let's get naked!

Your doors can be removed easily in a few simple steps. Don't be a snob or worry about scratching up your doors or the body of your Jeep. It's a Jeep! If it is scratchless and new right now, walk up to it and kick it so that it gets its first dent and scratch in it. There. Now your Jeep is no longer spotless. Cry yourself to sleep, nap on the couch, and then find your happy place again and get ready to enjoy some awesome outdoor times in your open-air, convertible, fun mobile!

Required Tools

Wrench. You'll need this to remove the nuts from your door hinges.

Paper Towel, rag, or old piece of t-shirt. If you are going to be a girly-man about scratching your paint, you incredible princess, then you can protect your panels from the wrench by putting the cloth between the wrench and the Jeep body.

Muscles. Full steel doors are pretty heavy. You girls out there who are five feet tall with size zero waists are not going to be able to lift full steel Jeep doors.

How To Remove The Doors

1. Remove the nuts from the door hinges. You basically unscrew these. They are stuck on there pretty good, so you'll have to put a little elbow grease behind it to break the lock-tite. Once you do, the nuts will come off with your fingers. The nuts unscrew clock-wise from the perspective of standing up straight and looking down on them. They are upside down, so it can be a little confusing. Not really. Just trying to make you feel better.

Unscrew these nuts clockwise and remove. I leave mine off forever. If you live in a bad neighborhood, best to put them back on when you replace the doors.

2. Unhook the door strap. Unlike a real automobile, Jeep's have no electronics in the doors. Why not? SO YOU CAN TAKE THE DOORS OFF, STUPID! There is nothing preventing your Jeep doors from swinging all the way around so they hit your mirrors and any surrounding vehicles you are parked near other than this little cloth strap. Lift it up and off the hook. When you put the doors back on, put this strap back on. If you don't, your door will open and swing away from the Jeep and clobber the BMW you parked next to at the grocery store. On second thought, leave the strap off! Seriously, put it back on so you don't smash your own car in the driveway or your own mirrors.

Just lift the strap off of the hook. The picture is hard to interpret, but when you look at the bottom of your door, you'll see this is brainless.

3. (Full steel doors only) Roll down the window. Trust me, when you go to lift the door up, if the window is not rolled down, you'll wish it was. If you have the half doors, then you just lift the whole window right up off the door. It has too six inch long posts that stab into the lower door, so lift pretty high up to remove plastic zip window frames.

4. Lift the doors up until the hinges undo and store doors. Full doors are fairly heavy - 60 or 70 pounds. I am six feet tall and 185 pounds. I find the doors fairly heavy to carry, but manageable. I carry mine by the upper window frame. When I store them, I just lean them against the wall in the garage. Some people set out a towel to avoid scratching the bottom of their doors. Whatever. I stopped caring about that after I twisted my front bumper hitting a tree, had my left front fender panel dinged by a neighbor backing into it, kicking my doors closed 10,000 times, etc. It's a friggin' Jeep, people. It's not a Mercedez. You don't take your Jeep to a body shop unless it no longer functions.

5. Lift the doors up until the hinges undo and store doors. Full doors are fairly heavy - 60 or 70 pounds. I am six feet tall and 185 pounds. I find the doors fairly heavy to carry, but manageable. I carry mine by the upper window frame. When I store them, I just lean them against the wall in the garage. Some people set out a towel to avoid scratching the bottom of their doors. Whatever. I stopped caring about that after I twisted my front bumper hitting a tree, had my left front fender panel dinged by a neighbor backing into it, kicking my doors closed 10,000 times, etc. It's a friggin' Jeep, people. It's not a Mercedez. You don't take your Jeep to a body shop unless it no longer functions.

6. Remove the door frames. Turn the large plastic knobs on top of your upper plastic door frames and remove them. Then, just give a tug and pull the whole plastic frame off. Careful! It will chop at your fingers because it folds in half when removed. Put these and the knobs in the garage next to the doors. Don't lose them! Without these frames, you will have no seal between your soft top and your door window, and rain will pour in!

You aren't really naked until the frames come off.

7. Store everything in the garage. They sell all sorts of carts to hold your doors and door frames. There are leather wraps, nylon zip covers, wool-lined suits, and everything else you can imagine to ensure your doors are carefully stored away and never scratched. Pictured is my preferred storage system. I designed it myself. Dude, it's a Jeep, and I'm not Martha Stewart.

My expensive door storage system keeps my doors and frames organized and carefully protected against wear and tear.

OH CRAP! HELP!

How in the hell did you manage to screw up removing your doors?

I scratched my Jeep, doors, nuts, leg, or whatever So what?

I lost the nuts that go on the hinges! No, really, I lost the nuts that go on my hinges. No kidding. Guess what? I don't care.

I busted the window on my full steel door! LOL! I told you to roll it down before you remove it. Read the directions and take your door to a body shop. The cool thing is you don't have to leave your whole Jeep there. HAHAHA!

My husband removed his doors and drives around with his leg hanging out. That's dangerous. You thought riding around in a vehicle with no doors on it was safe with his leg not hanging out of the door? You thought husbands do things that are safe? What's next? Pink bunny slippers and a leash? Buy more medical insurance.

It rained and the doors were off. I got soaked. Try checking weather.com before you leave the house next time. Look, if you don't like getting rained on, buy a BMW or some other wuss-mobile and get your nails done professionally. Sorry your hair gel got rained out, Mr. Metro. If you haven't ridden in a Jeep with no doors and no top in the rain, you have not ridden in a Jeep yet. Just smile at the people who stare at you and pump your fist as if to say, "ROCK ON! YEAH!" When you get home, pull up the carpet and you will find rubber drain plugs in your Jeep's floor. Pull them out and let it drain. Sit in the seats on towels to soak up the moisture. On the next sunny day, go naked again and this time leave the Jeep in the sun to bake. It will be like brand new.

My doors were stolen. Dude, it happens. If you live in a nasty neighborhood, all kinds of things get stolen: Your wallet, your bike, your Jeep doors, your Jeep, and maybe even your girlfriend. Move somewhere nicer. Put the nuts back on the doors when you are done if you are worried about theft. I keep my full doors locked and windows rolled up even when the top is down to make it slightly more annoying to steal them. It has worked so far.

The inside lights won't turn off. On a 2004 Wrangler, the inside lights will be on the whole time you drive around. When you stop, they will shut off after a few minutes. If this bothers you, open your glove box, undo the strap, and lower it down. You will see a fuse box. Using some needlenose pliers to pull FUSE #4. That will disable the overhead lights. Guess what else it disables? Your headlight warning light. That means when you leave the lights on, your Jeep will not beep at you when you turn it off to remind you to turn off your headlights. Goodbye battery should you forget! That's why I left that step out. I just let my lights stay on because I have burned out my battery before leaving the headlights on.

I am going to Spring Break with my Jeep. Should I remove the doors? Only if you like having attractive members of the opposite sex jumping in your Jeep with you. Enjoy.

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Looking to hear from you about door removal!