Full vehicle-lenght hardtop possible?

[Troybilt]

A bit of an extreme but you get the point.

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[smlobx]

^^^
Yeah that will work!

 

[Paladin_JTR]

So you want to take your truck purpose vehicle and turn it right back into an SUV? I am not fully understanding the benefit of a full length hard top. If you are talking about joining the back of the truck with the cab there would be a nightmare amount of fab work involved with that and you would be better off just placing a stretched JLU body on the Gladiator frame. If you do though please do me a favor and call it the JLUU (pronounced J-Loo)

"Next time on Diesel Brothers, we stretch a stretched stretcher and put 10 doors on it"

 

[Troybilt]

So you want to take your truck purpose vehicle and turn it right back into an SUV? I am not fully understanding the benefit of a full length hard top. If you are talking about joining the back of the truck with the cab there would be a nightmare amount of fab work involved with that and you would be better off just placing a stretched JLU body on the Gladiator frame. If you do though please do me a favor and call it the JLUU (pronounced J-Loo)

"Next time on Diesel Brothers, we stretch a stretched stretcher and put 10 doors on it"

I want to take my truck purpose vehicle and turn it into a temporary SUV type vehicle yes. This would be perfect for overloading and stealth camping. A 5 foot bed leaves little room for my tall wife lady and I have no use for a RTT.

To me the concept is about versatility. After a trip I simply remove the cap and cab covers and reinstall the factory hard top and within minuets I have my truck back.

 

[Paladin_JTR]

I want to take my truck purpose vehicle and turn it into a temporary SUV type vehicle yes. This would be perfect for overloading and stealth camping. A 5 foot bed leaves little room for my tall wife lady and I have no use for a RTT.

To me the concept is about versatility. After a trip I simply remove the cap and cab covers and reinstall the factory hard top and within minuets I have my truck back.

At that point though you are looking at major surgery. To make the bed any longer you would have to find a way to temporarily remove the entire back wall of the bed and cab without causing cab warping or water leaks. Do you man but making it one solid truck capable of this would be some major rework.

 

[Troybilt]

At that point though you are looking at major surgery. To make the bed any longer you would have to find a way to temporarily remove the entire back wall of the bed and cab without causing cab warping or water leaks. Do you man but making it one solid truck capable of this would be some major rework.

The sleeping shelf could easily just be above the bed rails and extend into the cab area. That would leave room for pull out drawers under the sleeping shelf. I am not talking about modifying the truck in any manner. Just the cab and bed cover.

 

[WhatExit?]

I’m going to go against the grain here and state that it is not possible due to the flexing between the cab and the bed. It could easily be an inch or two so my question is how would you compensate for that and still maintain water tightness?

Hmm. I thought I said that already...

Anything is possible but it’s not going to due to huge mechanical challenges caused by chassis flex/twist

 

[Rummie]

I found this video interesting. It shows the amount the beds of Chevy and Ford pickups twist when they use a couple of offset ramps. They measure the movement of the second Ford's bed at over an inch at one point. The Chevy only has about 1/4 inch of movement. Not sure how the torsional rigidity of the Gladiator would compare.

 

[Ichthus]

As said, the disconnect between cab and bed is the fly in the soup for a solid hardtop. If only it was like a Blazer!

Ummmm....that would LITERALLY be a Wrangler.

 

[spazzyfry123]

Ummmm....that would LITERALLY be a Wrangler.

 

[Mules]

Both

If anyone can show examples of how to eliminate the cab/bed flex, or to allow the flex, it would be great. I would love to build a slide in camper that replaces my cab hard top. replacing the hardtop would save a couple hundred pounds and connect the cab HVAC with the camper.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Have you calculated the weight on something you would build? Especially something with enough structure to allow for a top that lifts like you show - it would require some extra rigidity built into the sides.

The only way I see to remove that flex from bed vs. cab would be to change out some of the mounting pads to ones that allow more movement on the frame and then connect the cab to the box solidly. It would require something more than along the bottom, some square tubing between the two and drill through box, tubing and cab and bolt them together. Anything you do strictly on the bottom would still allow too much flex.
Use the original Blazer as a guide - the body is all one piece and thick and strong. It's not individual panels all bolted together.

Even unibody cars have some flexing - when we restore them we have to build braces that go in the door frames and other locations when we remove the floor sills and rocker panels.
I've cracked the joints between the A pillars and the roof panel twice on my Eagle from body flex.
The Gladiator and other Jeeps "stay together" because there IS that flex allowed. The Gladiator is successful because the frame can flex under the body and box and they are allowed to move independently. Not sure how things would hold up attaching the two and making them rigid, but the only way I see of connecting them is bolt the two together, bottom AND up the sides, in between.

 

[booneja]

on another thread (not sure which one) but one of our fellow forum members is working on a modified top that will allow him to add a third row of seats and keep the stock look of the regular hard top, form what I could remember is that he took another hard top and combined it with his existing one, with some fiberglass modifications, added additional roll bar for the back of the bed (to keep consistent look) and from the build progress shots provided it was a really good idea. I'm not sure about the flex but from what he was saying is was not that much compared to what the F-150 in above shot. Not for me, but if you have a large family (more than two kids) and still want a JT, why not go for it.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Just so everyone keeps in mind the legal responsibility should any such thing be involved in a roll-over with a 3rd row involved. Granted, it's your own people/family, but I've seen families ripped apart when someone dies, there's blame and so on.
Say things are modified, there's a third row of seats - which by necessity would be in the box, the top is extended - the roll protection structure would need to be extended to cover/protect anyone in that third row. Seat belts are necessary (wear them or not, that gets looked at in accidents)
I had a Jeep ZJ in my shop that was flipped - literally, end-for-end and landed on the roof. It may look like there's nothing there, but inside the ZJ, there was no damage to the headliner, the interior was intact, internally the roof was not pushed into the cabin area.
You roll that thing with an added 3rd row and extended roof, it had better allow anyone in that 3rd row seat to survive, the roll cage had better hold up, seat belts need to function and hold solid (the bolts and attachment points for belts are crazy strong)
If a family member is hurt or killed in an accident, you may not want to believe it, but divorces can happen, brothers refuse to sit in the same room with other brothers, etc. (not sure if my two brothers will talk to each other these days.......... I've not heard from either of them myself)
Just be careful and safe! That's all!

 

[kndrewa]

Here's a video of a 1-off prototype of a full length hardtop with a booster seat for kids in the back "7 seat gladiator"

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