Tensioning the soft top - turning that frown upside down!

Bammo68

Bammo68

TJ Enthusiast
Joined
Dec 27, 2021
Messages
164
Location
Western Australia
I took the 2000 TJ out on the weekend now that its finally in presentable condition. At freeway speeds the noise from the canvas directly above my head is quite loud with a lot of hard flaps and bangs. I pulled over and spent a fair bit of time trying to tension the top part and managed to improve it significantly but its not perfect and its hard to do with one person. indeed its hard to do with two people - I was trying to pull the middle of the top into line whilst clipping both windscreen mounts in.

You can see in the photos below that the seam looks like a frown instead of being parallel with the windscreen. Bigger the frown, more noise obviously.

How are you supposed to tension this part when clipping in the final part? The photos show it as tensioned as I can get it with two people - we can get the seam basically level but once it clips in it slips back to this.

Jeep Softtop.jpg
Bow Tension.jpg
 
I'd mostly un-install it and see if any of the header screws tore out/through and aren't holding the canvas where it should be
 
Was the soft top replaced by the previous owner ?
On my Jeep that seam is at the edge of the windshield and can barely be seen.
When my friend and I replaced my soft top; special attention was required when attaching the material to the header.
There are quite a few factory screws that are used to attach the material to the header.
The material is stretched quite tightly when latching the header to the windshield frame.
As posted above; inspect where the material attaches to the header to see if its attached correctly or torn.
 
I think there is usually extra holes for extra header screws, if its a replacement top which I am assuming it is given its over 20 years old then some of the header screws could be missing or put in wrong like @CharlesHS mentioned.
 
Clearly Mr previous "I have no Fracking Clue" owner replaced the top at some stage because have a guess how many of the header screws were missing? If you answered "all of them" congratulations to you! There were none installed and a close inspection of the canvas shows none were ever installed. Being my first soft top I just assumed that was the way it was designed but once I found the cutouts on the back of the plastic stiffener on the header and the very small slits in the canvas it was immediately obvious they weren't installed in the first place. About 10 small stainless self-tappers later and the roof is now properly tensioned. The overly long rubber weather strips on the door uppers were, I suspect, installed by the same muppet.

As always, thanks brains trust!
 
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Bammo68 said:
Clearly Mr previous "I have no Fracking Clue" owner replaced the top at some stage because have a guess how many of the header screws were missing? If you answered "all of them" congratulations to you! There were none installed and a close inspection of the canvas shows none were ever installed. Being my first soft top I just assumed that was the way it was designed but once I found the cutouts on the back of the plastic stiffener on the header and the very small slits in the canvas it was immediately obvious they weren't installed in the first place. About 10 small stainless self-tappers later and the roof is now properly tensioned. The overly long rubber weather strips on the door uppers were, I suspect, installed by the same muppet.

As always, thanks brains trust!
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Most of the tops only come with about half the screws for screw holes so you dont really need too many as long as they are even I think its 7 plus the 2 each edge, Glad you sorted it. :)

Did you do a Vin Check on factory build date yet? some years changed certain parts that you may need in the future and establishing your correct factory build date as apposed to import registration plate is quite important when ordering parts online from USA given those parts are at least half the cost they are in OZ but you still dont want the wrong parts. :)
 
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Fishtaco said:
Did you do a Vin Check on factory build date yet? some years changed certain parts that you may need in the future and establishing your correct factory build date as apposed to import registration plate is quite important when ordering parts online from USA given those parts are at least half the cost they are in OZ but you still dont want the wrong parts. :)
Click to expand...

Why yes I did and it revealed a lot! What is on my compliance plate as a 2001 is actually a Feb 1999 built TJ. This answers the mystery of why some items I had ordered just plain wouldn't fit - the exhaust manifold gasket and serpentine belt chief amongst them. Most stuff was OK but every now and again it seemed like I had the wrong year and now I know why. 2 years between manufacture and compliance seems excessive but I understand there was a real lag in sales around that time. Good news is it likely means my head isn't one of the ones prone to cracking.

Shows the danger in relying on the Rego lookup option that SCA and Repco offers as that only relies on compliance info not VIN.
 
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