After taking a good blow to the head about an hour ago because my lift gate arms decided to take a s***, I got to thinking. has anyone done some sort of custom hatch? (aside from the ones done in roof chops) I pictured a wrangler tailgate type hatch. any ideas or advice if I try and tackle this one?

 

there is a thread on this in the forum do an advanced search looks time consuming

 

Why not simply get new struts? Even some junk yard struts are in good shape. My current ones are from the bone yard & they stay up, plus I got 2 sets of spares.

 

I've thought about doing something like a blazers hatch...the lower half folds down and the top goes up...not sure if fiberglass is strong enough for that

 

its not......one guy on here cut his hatch below the window and filled it then fabed up a Comanche tail gate looked kinda cool but i would just leave it and get some new struts, junkyard or otherwise...

 

X2 This is what I was pondering in the shower this morning haha. I wonder if it would be more doable on a 97+ with the metal hatch...

 

I wanna see a custom hatch, do it but maybe pick up a spare hatch to do it on in case things go wrong you know

 

You can cut the metal hatches BUT you will have to fab in some sheet metal because the place to cut it is on the body line bend. When you do this it seperates the inner skin from the outter skin and then the inner skin has a large cut out in the center for the workings of everthing on the hatch. The other thing that I found is that the button to lift the glass is on the lower half and if you cut the hatch in half you will not be able to use that button to operate the back glass. I cut mine in half for the chopped top and am having to do some fab work but if you are of fabbing go for it. Oh yea, and you will have to find something to use for the upper half to brace under the window kind of like some angle or square tubing. This is the stuff I ran into. Shoot me a PM to remind me and when I get back to the garage I'll take a couple picks to show you what I mean.

 

wasn't aware there were metal hatches...I've had a 96 and I have a 88 now both fiberglass hatches...

 

Did specific year's have a metal hatch?

 

97+ are metal.

 

I have a 2000 and its fiberglass.

 

If this true, your schooling me. Is it aftermarket?

 

Never heard of that before. I really wish my 94 was metal though

 

Never mind I stand corrected, I just went out and put a magnet up to it and it stuck.