I, like others, have wanted barn doors on my suburban in place of the tailgate for whatever reason. Mine is an 89, without the easy provisions for a barn door swap. I heard a body swap is easier. I don't buy it (I haven't done it either, so maybe it is). My goal is to centralize some ideas for those that want to do this someday without the necessity of body shop skills and excessive cutting. Any input is appreciated. Currently, my tailgate is in decent shape and works as it should...so the idea of a swap is on the back burner until the right donor shows up or I break another rear window.
That being said, the info for the swap is all over the place. I found a decent write up here (3rd post) with no pics. From my searching, here is what is needed:
1. Barn doors
. Hinges, hardware, straps, strikers, seal, whatever you can take.
2. Lower sill/crossmember piece. Some say it's 100% bolt on to remove, including some body adhesive. Others say there were two spot welds as well. Here is a pic of what they look like. It's #2 and #4 in the lower right of the page.
3. Upper striker plate. It appears the tailgate window area panels unscrew and pull off (adhesive). The striker holes exist, but with no nut plate.
4. Hinge plates (or your own concoction) for behind the metal. I would attempt to hack them out of a donor if I could.
5. You will need to cut slots for the upper and lower hinges on each side, access holes for two nut plates per side, and one upper striker (maybe, I haven't had a chance to look, other options may be possible).
Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see any mandatory welding involved.
I saw a hacked tailgated 90 or 91 burb in the boneyard yesterday...they converted it to a truck. This allowed me to take some pictures so you can get a visual of the innards of the upper hinge area to see what you will be cutting into. Lower area was similar, but too hard to photograph.
Here is the driver side looking down. Note the holes for the hinge bolts. The plate needs to go here. Way down there, the 3 lower holes were visible too.
Here you can see where the tailgate striker pin was (I took it for the nice bushing still on it). See that dimple? It APPEARS that this marks the center of the three holes from above. Same appears to be true for the lower hinge. I would try to take a hole saw to the striker area to remove it and also use the new hole to slide a nut plate or nuts with thick washers up in there. Personally, I would just use an adhesive to hold a plate/washers on. I don't see a reason to weld it. Also, the cut hole is in a location that would be easy to glue/weld a plate back over it.
The lower hinge nut plate can be installed by removing the tail light and cutting a hole in the metal that blocks off the predrilled holes, as described in the chevytalk link.
I'm not saying this will be easy, but I think those of us lower-intermediate skilled folks have a good chance of doing this without a welder and without obliterating too much sheet metal
. I plan to do it when my tailgate breaks or the unicorn burb is in the jy. Of course, if I'm totally missing something please come crush my dreams 
That being said, the info for the swap is all over the place. I found a decent write up here (3rd post) with no pics. From my searching, here is what is needed:
1. Barn doors
. Hinges, hardware, straps, strikers, seal, whatever you can take.2. Lower sill/crossmember piece. Some say it's 100% bolt on to remove, including some body adhesive. Others say there were two spot welds as well. Here is a pic of what they look like. It's #2 and #4 in the lower right of the page.
3. Upper striker plate. It appears the tailgate window area panels unscrew and pull off (adhesive). The striker holes exist, but with no nut plate.
4. Hinge plates (or your own concoction) for behind the metal. I would attempt to hack them out of a donor if I could.
5. You will need to cut slots for the upper and lower hinges on each side, access holes for two nut plates per side, and one upper striker (maybe, I haven't had a chance to look, other options may be possible).
Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see any mandatory welding involved.
I saw a hacked tailgated 90 or 91 burb in the boneyard yesterday...they converted it to a truck. This allowed me to take some pictures so you can get a visual of the innards of the upper hinge area to see what you will be cutting into. Lower area was similar, but too hard to photograph.
Here is the driver side looking down. Note the holes for the hinge bolts. The plate needs to go here. Way down there, the 3 lower holes were visible too.
Here you can see where the tailgate striker pin was (I took it for the nice bushing still on it). See that dimple? It APPEARS that this marks the center of the three holes from above. Same appears to be true for the lower hinge. I would try to take a hole saw to the striker area to remove it and also use the new hole to slide a nut plate or nuts with thick washers up in there. Personally, I would just use an adhesive to hold a plate/washers on. I don't see a reason to weld it. Also, the cut hole is in a location that would be easy to glue/weld a plate back over it.
The lower hinge nut plate can be installed by removing the tail light and cutting a hole in the metal that blocks off the predrilled holes, as described in the chevytalk link.
I'm not saying this will be easy, but I think those of us lower-intermediate skilled folks have a good chance of doing this without a welder and without obliterating too much sheet metal
. I plan to do it when my tailgate breaks or the unicorn burb is in the jy. Of course, if I'm totally missing something please come crush my dreams
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