The Scrambler/Overlander Project:
Alaskan Postal Hardtop
The stock Alaskan Postal hardtop as I found it on eBay.
In 1984 Jeep delivered a little over 200 right-hand-drive CJ-8's to the US Postal Service for use in Alaska. These Jeeps had a panel truck version of the World Cab hardtop installed from the factory. These hardtops are extremely rare in the continental US, but I found one on eBay. This top was also used (with Windows) on the Australian Overlanders and CJ-8's and CJ-8-length YJ's in Venzuela, and probably other countries.
The one I found was in pretty good condition, with only surface rust. The only significant problem was the roof, it appears someone had dragged the top on the ground upside down, scratching the roof and dishing it in at a few places. But nothing too hard to fix.
The first step was to remove the foam insulation. These Jeeps had foam sprayed on the inside, evidently to insulate the interior from the Alaskan cold. And there's no easy way to get it off, it's got to be scraped and chipped off. Once that's off, the top can be disassembled, as it was designed to be shipped flat and assembled at the destination. In the photos below some of the foam is yet to be removed.
The next task was to cut holes for the side windows. The inside wall of the top is indented for a window opening, as shown in the first photo below, so I cut the outer wall around the inner wall opening, as shown in the second photo.
Then the two sides, the top panel and the rear door went to a local body shop to be refinished.
The top parts came back looking like new. The rear door and one side panel are shown above.
I installed the top in pieces - first the side panels were bolted to the sides of the Jeep's tub, and then the top panel was lowered on. I brought the top panel home on top of the Suburban, drove it in the garage and strapped it up to the garage door rails. Then I drove the Suburban out and the Scrambler in and lowered the top panel onto the side panels. Simple one-man job.
I didn't like the factory design for securing the hardtop to the top of the windshield frame - sheet-metal screws up through holes in the windshield frame into the hardtop, so I fabricated the brackets below to pull the top down tight, one for each side of the windshield frame.
The installed top is shown below. I also had to fabricate the spare tire carrier shown in the photo below, but that's covered on this page.
The only other complication is that I did not get the World Cab doors with my hardtop. These doors are different in that the window frame comes to a point in the upper corner rather than the curved corner of the stock CJ doors. I fabricated corner fillers out of some 1/2" angle iron and some sheet metal; these are shown in the photo below. They actually seal better than the doors did on the stock Scrambler half cab, so they worked out pretty well. Instructions for making the corner fillers are available in PDF.
