I recently bought a 1980 FJ40, and was fortunate to have gotten one with very little wrong with it mechanically as well as with regards to the body. One of the previous owners decided to weld in a panel where the rear half doors go, and when it was sold to me he gave me the oem doors which I've had media blasted and they are in pristine condition now.
I had combed the mud forms for how to go about getting them back in place and deal with the lighted license plate holder and, since they still have the hinges as well as the "Bestop" rivets, it should be a relatively simple matter. However, I've seen an overwhelming amount of posts in here where people have engineered (either from scratch or by welding the doors together) a more traditional tail gate like on a pickup truck.
One of the main things that drew me to the FJ40 in the first place was every little detail about how it looks, half doors included. I know I'll likely never fully restore this truck to original appearance but I like the idea of the doors for a more "authentic" feel.
TL;DR - are the barn doors "that bad"? I assume they're noisy (my entire truck is noisy), so that's not too much of a putoff; I imagine some rattle can be mitigated. I don't know that I would get that much more utility of a traditional style fold down tail gate - if I'm carrying a ton of stuff I'll just use my pickup truck. I guess I'm just curious about the why and why not for the barn doors. Bonus points if anyone can tell me what in the world is up with the electrical wire being "mounted" under my welded in panel (bottom left). My best guess is it's something for the tail lights.
I had combed the mud forms for how to go about getting them back in place and deal with the lighted license plate holder and, since they still have the hinges as well as the "Bestop" rivets, it should be a relatively simple matter. However, I've seen an overwhelming amount of posts in here where people have engineered (either from scratch or by welding the doors together) a more traditional tail gate like on a pickup truck.
One of the main things that drew me to the FJ40 in the first place was every little detail about how it looks, half doors included. I know I'll likely never fully restore this truck to original appearance but I like the idea of the doors for a more "authentic" feel.
TL;DR - are the barn doors "that bad"? I assume they're noisy (my entire truck is noisy), so that's not too much of a putoff; I imagine some rattle can be mitigated. I don't know that I would get that much more utility of a traditional style fold down tail gate - if I'm carrying a ton of stuff I'll just use my pickup truck. I guess I'm just curious about the why and why not for the barn doors. Bonus points if anyone can tell me what in the world is up with the electrical wire being "mounted" under my welded in panel (bottom left). My best guess is it's something for the tail lights.