Hi there,
I have picked up a cheap 93 4 door Sidekick and want to cut the roof off as well as the back window. Basically a convertible conversion with no need for a top, but I want to keep the 4 doors and windows intact. Anyone have any experience with this?
Ive been warned by a body guy that the frame on the 4 door is not 1 piece so if I cut the roof the body will buckle very slightly and the doors will jam.
I am using this rig strictly for running on the sand and washboard so dont want the roof.
Any advice?
Sawzall at the ready.

S1

I personally haven't had an easy time finding a 4 door and you want to cut it up, tell ya what, sell yours to me and I have a few 2 doors you can play with ; )

Are you planning on putting a cage in as well?

Yes, of course.
one hoop around the windshield, one behind the driver and one behind the backseat.

S1

4 doors definatley have a solid one piece frame just like the 2 doors. As long as the body is solid enough and not too rotted away, you should be fine cutting the roof off and still have the doors work...

I believe that you will want to put a brace between the door posts behind the front seats to support the rear door hinges better. Other than that Lets see some pics

And if you add some body supports that tie into your roll cage you should be set. 

took awhile but its finally done to what I would consider fine "hackmanship".
Total cost was $500 for cutting the top, welding the rolls bars, welding in new rocker panels, bondo here and there, and the full paint job. This thing will run on sand 80% of the time so bigger tires and it will be set.

That is pretty cool. 

Have you looked at chopping the front doors to match the rears, or do you want to allow the window to roll up.

Very cool.  Nice job.   I've always had a dream to graft the sunroof flip from a 2 door onto a 4 door.  But since I can't weld it's not going to happen anytime soon.

if you welded the rear doors shut, and smoothed out the door handle's, it could pass as a LWB sidekick, cool

I always wanted to do exactly that with my old Sidekick, but since it rains 9 month out of the year here I figured it was more work than it was worth. Looks good, but it will look really good with some bigger tires and some black wheels

Huh.  I really like that.

Nice work.

Nice!