Bestop availability

That looks about the same as mine. Here's a picture from a different view.

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Took a couple more pictures of the inside.

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I called and taked with bestop tech support. After sending pictures to her to look at, she said that the header bar is sitting in the wrong position, which I suspected, but she said that the bar needs to be rolled forward and force be applied to the center of the bar while the bolts are being tightened.

I still don't see that happening, but I know of no other company who sells a different one, so it is what it is.

Oh, and she said that it is normal for the bolts to be pushing into the fabric once the bar is rolled forward as they suggest.
 
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I held my bar like that when tightening.

Maybe cut a piece of stick on felt pad or the soft side of velcro to the bolt head to lessen the chaffing.
 
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That's what I'm thinking. Seems like I remember there being some stick-on things like that at Lowe's. Little felt bumpers and whatnot.

What I'd really like to do is stitch in some different rear straps. It seems to me that they would have put straps on there that have a j-hook that would grab onto the bed rail.

If it had something like that, it could be pulled more toward the rear so that it can be pulled tight.

I might be able to pull that off. That would be a really good improvement.
 
Yeah, you can find that stuff at Lowe’s, hone Depot or a smaller hardware store.

I had a CJ-5 with a bikini that had long straps that ran to the tub. These newer one don’t seem to have them and called “strapless”. At least I think that’s why they call them that.

Do you have the rear straps wrapped around the upper seatbelt bolt anchor?
 
Exactly, yeah. I put a bestop bikini top on a Scrambler that I worked on last year and that's the way it was. Attached to the footman loops on the wheel wells.

I don’t have the scrap around the seat belt loop. I started to do it that way, but it pulled downward moreso than rearward.

Here's how I have it
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Here's a new one. Left to go run an errand, but got a surprise.

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Pulled over to put it back.

Look how loose this thing is.
 

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Exactly, yeah. I put a bestop bikini top on a Scrambler that I worked on last year and that's the way it was. Attached to the footman loops on the wheel wells.

I don’t have the scrap around the seat belt loop. I started to do it that way, but it pulled downward moreso than rearward.

Here's how I have it
View attachment 167465

Here's a new one. Left to go run an errand, but got a surprise.

View attachment 167466
View attachment 167471

Pulled over to put it back.

Look how loose this thing is.

Dang. I can’t remember, but did you say you have the factory door surrounds or bestops surrounds? If the factory ones, do they have the slot for that aluminum support bar? Mine isn‘t very loose at all. It must be because of that aluminum bar. In my pics you can see the bar is pretty tight against the top. The only place mine moves is the rear middle flaps a little bit but i don’t hear it and it doesn’t bother me.

I have my rear straps down around the seatbelt bolt like the instructions said. I had to take the bolt out of the seatbelt part and put I back in cause I don’t usually have the rear seat in so I took all the tear belts out too.
 
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Dang. I can’t remember, but did you say you have the factory door surrounds or bestops surrounds? If the factory ones, do they have the slot for that aluminum support bar? Mine isn‘t very loose at all. It must be because of that aluminum bar. In my pics you can see the bar is pretty tight against the top. The only place mine moves is the rear middle flaps a little bit but i don’t hear it and it doesn’t bother me.

I have my rear straps down around the seatbelt bolt like the instructions said. I had to take the bolt out of the seatbelt part and put I back in cause I don’t usually have the rear seat in so I took all the tear belts out too.
I don’t believe mine do. Mine are the factory surrounds. When I looked at yours in the picture, I was wondering why yours looked different than mine in that area. So, the bestop surrounds is what I'm seeing in your picture?

I'm the same as you with the flapping on the tail-end of the top. I don't mind that really.

So, now I'm wondering if mine is loose because of the door surrounds. I don't even know. Pretty disgusted with the whole ordeal, tbh.
 
Yes mine are the Bestop surrounds that came with my Supertop nx soft top. I thought one time I read that the factory surrounds didn’t have the slot for the aluminum support bar but I’m not sure. I’ve never seen the factory surrounds that up close before. I don’t know how yours are made but I’d imagine a slot would be somewhat easy to cut into the surrounds with a dremel cut off wheel or similar. Or but some Bestop surrounds which could be more than you want to put into it.

I hate that you’re having these problems. I’m loving mine so far.
 
Oh yeah, I could come up with something that would allow a bar to be put up there. I haven't seen the bestop surrounds, but the factory surrounds have places that partially wrap the bar where they screw down. Aside from that, its just the flat "surround part".

That probably didn't draw out a good picture. With these, there's nothing in-between the two upper attachment points, like the area where your aluminum bar is mounted. Maybe that made more sense.

I hate the situation too. Extremely frustrating. Definitely not content enough with the design and quantity to trust buying more from them to simply keep such a simple top from flying off the jeep.

Oh, I noticed something this afternoon. When I mentioned the front rollbar pieces leaving a lot of slack, it appears that they were made to wrap the rollbar size that's in the rear. Never really noticed it before, but the rear bars and padding have a larger diameter than the front. Maybe they designed them in the thinking that the front bars are the same. Who knows.
 
That’s really weird. It almost seems like you got a different top. When I get home from work I’ll see what the part numbers were for my top and header and let you know. I would think they are the same.
 
I was wrong, my header did not have a nut on the bottom, it has a nutsert like you said yours does.

The kit I ordered from Morris4x4 was listed as 52544-35W
It included the header, part number 51238-01 and the fabric top in black diamond, part number 52544-35

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This is how I have the rear straps.

IMG_0429.JPG
 
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Yep that's the kit. And those surrounds do look very similar to the factory surrounds. Minus the slot for the bar. I'll snap a picture of these and show you what they look like.

What's really bizarre with this top is how freely it pops loose from the door sorrounds when I push upward on the fabric. You can see in the picture from yesterday, but that same directional movement is what the top naturally does when it balloons upward, so even the ballooning up causes it to pop loose.

I may be missing something, but it seems to me that the top only works with their door surrounds. With this top, and these surrounds, I can very easily pop it loose from the surrounds by only using my pinky finger.

I took a few pictures of this flubbed up header bar.

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This is the position that she told me yesterday was wrong.
 
I don’t remember what my header looked like When mounted before I put the fabric on, but it looks like yours doesn’t match the shape of the top of your windshield. Could they have had the wrong header in the box? I wonder if they would send you out a new header to try?
 
I only saw the one style after I entered in my make and model. I have now seen that they have now made a "Factory Style" that appears to have been done correctly. Atleast partially.

Screenshot_20200605-124935_Chrome.jpg


I called back and talked with tech support this morning. He looked at the pictures that I sent over to the other tech yesterday.

What he told me was that the bar won't sit perfectly upright, but the way mine is mounted is too far back and that it needs to roll forward a little, so that the front seats against the windshield seal.

It won't do that without sitting upright, and tilting it backward any whatsoever will cause it to fall back into the position that it's in now.

He sent a couple of video links.


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After I looked at the first one, I pointed out how mine is mounted the same way as she has done it in the video. In this video, she used no force to roll the bar forward like I was told to do yesterday. I thought that was interesting.

After I pointed that out, he wanted me to watch this one, saying "it is a better one".


Screenshot_20200605-131135_YouTube.jpg


In this one, the guy shows the incorrect way, in the screenshot, but he the proceeds to rolling it upright and flush with the seal while saying that it needs to be that way.

The funny part is that his he doesn't continue the step-by-step install. It stops there and moves on to another year model wrangler.

I saw this and realized that I'm not entirely alone in these issues.

Screenshot_20200605-080524_YouTube.jpg


Screenshot_20200605-131135_YouTube.jpg
 
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I only saw the one style after I entered in my make and model. I have now seen that they have now made a "Factory Style" that appears to have been done correctly. Atleast partially.

View attachment 167705

I called back and talked with tech support this morning. He looked at the pictures that I sent over to the other tech yesterday.

What he told me was that the bar won't sit perfectly upright, but the way mine is mounted is too far back and that it needs to roll forward a little, so that the front seats against the windshield seal.

It won't do that without sitting upright, and tilting it backward any whatsoever will cause it to fall back into the position that it's in now.

He sent a couple of video links.


View attachment 167694
View attachment 167693

After I looked at the first one, I pointed out how mine is mounted the same way as she has done it in the video. In this video, she used no force to roll the bar forward like I was told to do yesterday. I thought that was interesting.

After I pointed that out, he wanted me to watch this one, saying "it is a better one".


View attachment 167697

In this one, the guy shows the incorrect way, in the screenshot, but he the proceeds to rolling it upright and flush with the seal while saying that it needs to be that way.

The funny part is that his he doesn't continue the step-by-step install. It stops there and moves on to another year model wrangler.

I saw this and realized that I'm not entirely alone in these issues.

View attachment 167698

View attachment 167696

the factory style header in the first photo (top) is for the framed style or factory setup. not sure if you noticed but the header has plugs coming out on each end for the tubes to slip onto.
 
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Ah. Yeah, I did see that in another picture. So I guess that bar is for framed soft tops.

On another note, I called them back and got a RA number to send it all back.

I made one last attempt by going and picking up longer bolts that would allow the bolts to be started, and bar to be rolled forward like they suggest. As soon as I took my hand off the bar, it fell right back into it's natural position.
 
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I had initially thought about buying the drill in style for the early TJ’s without the Plastic windshield trim and then modifying it, but I wanted the full length of the LJ too instead of the shorter tops for regular TJ’s.

That sucks. I hope you can get it figured out.
 
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I had initially thought about buying the drill in style for the early TJ’s without the Plastic windshield trim and then modifying it, but I wanted the full length of the LJ too instead of the shorter tops for regular TJ’s.

That sucks. I hope you can get it figured out.

That's not a bad idea. I like to do that sometimes. More times than not some of those projects can turn into something better than the alternatives.

SO, I threw another hail mary. I went to pull the top off and snap a picture to show you what the door surrounds look like, and an idea hit me.

Here's what the factory surrounds look like.

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Here's what I tried.
It lifted it enough that it removed the slack and made the sides much tighter to snap in, like they should be.

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If I cancel the return, I'll round off the corners of that block so that it's not poking into the material like it is. Anyway, I drove it down the road and the sides never once popped out.

Oh, and I relocated the rear straps to the seatbelt bolt like you did yours. That is better. The whole top now pulls pretty snuggly when all of the straps are pulled.

I'm pretty stoked. Now that just leaves the sketchy header bar, but I xan worry with that later. If need be, I'll get a cutting wheel and welder to it.
 
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Hey, good idea. After seeing all the trouble you’re having, I’m thinking that aluminum support bar is making all the difference in mine. You might be able to find a used one on eBay or something. I have my Supertop instructions at home and can check the part number for you If you want. I’d imagine different wrangler models are different lengths.