Soft top not designed for door surrounds?

Tim_with_the_tj

Tim_with_the_tj

TJ Enthusiast
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Jul 25, 2021
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Vancouver, WA
Recently bought this Jeep (which has definitely seen some fun times, as you may notice as well). I was considering getting full doors and during my reading I learned about door surrounds. Well, my Jeep doesn’t have any door surrounds and appears this soft top frame isn’t designed to use them. Is this an old style top or something?


1E68E2B5-F6AB-4736-BA30-E4964F09F318.jpeg

(That’s my fingertip in the gap.)^^^
 
TJ_Tim said:
Recently bought this Jeep (which has definitely seen some fun times, as you may notice as well). I was considering getting full doors and during my reading I learned about door surrounds. Well, my Jeep doesn’t have any door surrounds and appears this soft top frame isn’t designed to use them. Is this an old style top or something?

View attachment 281779
View attachment 281780
(That’s my fingertip in the gap.)^^^
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More than likely a Bestop Supertop. I had one years ago and it looked just like that. Here is a link to it: Supertop
 
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That is a BestTop like Andy said. The metal bar is your surround and will work with full doors.
I've got some pictures on my laptop I can post later.
 
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When the top material wears out throw that whole mess in the garbage and come get a factory soft top frame from me
 
TJ_Tim said:
Cool. Will that gap seal up better with full doors? (Where my finger is poking thru.)
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From the picture it looks like the hole is in the front not the side. Can you post a picture where it is?
 
Wildman said:
From the picture it looks like the hole is in the front not the side. Can you post a picture where it is?
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I'll try to get a video of it later. I'm not sure a full door would help much, since the gap seems to be related to how the soft top frame is made (no door surrounds). I've yet to see if it leaks here....but I'm sure it will.
 
Looks like I could maybe shift the soft top within the header rail about a half inch to one side to center it, but the gap would still be there. Just seems like part of the design of the frame and fabric.
 
I don't remember having that gap there when I had mine. Seems like the header is too high or the soft upper frames on the doors aren't quite right. My bet would be on the header.
 
Andy-WhiteTJ said:
I don't remember having that gap there when I had mine. Seems like the header is too high or the soft upper frames on the doors aren't quite right. My bet would be on the header.
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The soft door frames are probably Bestop since the skins are and the top is. They seem to fit ok. If they were any taller they would probably hit the drip rail flap on the top (flap area that runs over the length of door). Header all looks fine. Doesn’t seem to have any adjustment to it. There is this little bracket that holds the frame that I did adjust slightly on the driver side. Still had a small gap and don’t see how it would ever be sealed with this design…unless maybe the front corner of upper door in that area were about 1/2 inch taller. Even then it would have a little gap.
 
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