The saga of my Rampage (or any other brand) soft top installation:

Yes, they go on the rollbar under the padding. The vertical part of the roll bar behind the driver and passenger seat should have a slit for it in the padding about mid-way between the top of the tub and the top of the roll bar. Peal off the padding and you should see two threaded holes. Mount the brackets, then replace the padding. They do not go on the slanted part of the roll bar, as illustrated in your picture. I found a picture of what it should look like, and circled where the brackets mount. (the picture is for an unlimited, which uses a different frame setup, but still illustrates where your brackets go)
View attachment 72779

I found the slits. And know exactly what you mean. Thank you.
 
I have a Rampage soft top. With their frame. It uses their front header, the one that you posted, that bolts to the windshield frame and has the channel on it that the plastic edge of the front of the top slides into. Like someone just above mentioned above, to install my top, I install my frame to the Jeep and the header channel. I then slide the front leading plastic edge in the channel on the header bar. I then go to the rear of the Jeep and pull the top out nice and straight, over the frame and lock the rear corner edges in to the rail on the body. It may be a little tight. You may have to gently pull down on the top, applying a little pressure to your frame in order to get the corner edges under the body rail. I then wrap my door areas around the supplied door surrounds, then I wrap the interior Velcro wraps around the front bow and rear bow, install my side windows and rear window. I do this usually in November. Typically it’s 40-50* F. I’ll bring the top inside for a few hours that’s morningto warm it up. It goes on smooth every time. You shouldn’t be having this much difficulty. I mean it’s a little confusing for a first timer, but it sounds like you are mix matching parts or we are overlooking something.

The frame I have, has their metal, framed door surrounds. It doesn’t use factory style surrounds.

I don’t know, but I feel like you trying to put a frameless top on a Jeep with a frame?

Like stated above. What I have appears to be a BEstop Supertop frame. Which doesn't mate well with a Rampage replace a top. I called Rampage and I need the OEM frame for my top. That's the issue. And why I had been struggling so much to get the top on. I used the same directions you detail above. But the bows are just to big for that top using the Supertop frame.

Those are the two (generally speaking) main types of frames. And I of course have the wrong one. lol. Or should say "had" the wrong one. mrBlaine hooked me up with a new oem frame. That I'll be fitting on Saturday. So everything should button up then. Just need to get the bow brackets shipped in on Saturday. Which is also the only sunny day were having in two weeks or more.

I will say the OEM top looks alot easier to take down and put back up than the Supertop frame and header. I think I'm going to be alot more happy with it. Than the frame I have. If I had to take down the mess I had - I doubt I would ever do it. Cause it was so much trouble to get in in the first place. And never did fit all the way.

So hopefully saturday I'll have this buttoned up.
 
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I'd just pay the stupid price and be done.

You're right. I just wanted to do your frame justice and at least put it in with the proper hardware. :) The only other issue I can think of is the plastic ends on the frame tubes. I don't remember if I saw those last night in the dark when I picked it up. I may need to order some of those too. Gonna check it in a sec. They may even have them in stock at the 4WP's down the road from me. Or I may be able to salvage whatever I have on my existing frame. I must have those now. I don't think those changed.
 
You're right. I just wanted to do your frame justice and at least put it in with the proper hardware. :) The only other issue I can think of is the plastic ends on the frame tubes. I don't remember if I saw those last night in the dark when I picked it up. I may need to order some of those too. Gonna check it in a sec. They may even have them in stock at the 4WP's down the road from me. Or I may be able to salvage whatever I have on my existing frame. I must have those now. I don't think those changed.
The bow knuckles are present and perfect with the special shoulder screws. You'll see the foam on the latches which show that frame has never been installed.
 
The bow knuckles are present and perfect with the special shoulder screws. You'll see the foam on the latches which show that frame has never been installed.

Cool. Good to know. Now I don't have to go down to my garage and check. lol.

MAn. You really hooked me up here. I can't tell you how grateful I am. The only used ones I could find were many days away shipping wise. And this one is brand new. And would have cost me $600. Super thankful. :)

Pictures to come this weekend. I'll do your frame justice.
 
Cool. Good to know. Now I don't have to go down to my garage and check. lol.

MAn. You really hooked me up here. I can't tell you how grateful I am. The only used ones I could find were many days away shipping wise. And this one is brand new. And would have cost me $600. Super thankful. :)

Pictures to come this weekend. I'll do your frame justice.
It is too bad your budgetary constraints are what they are. I also have several new OEM khaki soft tops complete with door surrounds for about the same 600. I acquired them as spares for Kat's rig and then she decided she liked black tops better.
 
It is too bad your budgetary constraints are what they are. I also have several new OEM khaki soft tops complete with door surrounds for about the same 600. I acquired them as spares for Kat's rig and then she decided she liked black tops better.

Ya. All I could afford was this Rampage top on sale for $182. Otherwise I probably would have waited. Plus I still have this transmission issue I need to take care of.

Right now I'm just trying to get it up to drivability standards. And then I'll have the time and money to put some nicer stuff on it. The top I had you literally couldn't see out of. It wasn't safe. I mean you could get around. But I got honked at a couple times for not seeing someone. It was actually my wife that forced me to buy it. lol. My son's home from college. Drove the Jeep once. And now he's a convert. He was never even into cars before this. But the wife wasn't into him driving a Jeep you couldn't see out of. He leaves on Sunday though back to New York. So he might get one good ride out of it on Saturday if I can get it done.
 
“He leaves on Sunday though back to New York.”

Not to derail the thread, but where in NY if you don’t mind me asking...
 
He got a full ride to Sarah Lawrence College. And maintains a better than 4.0 GPA. It's the most expensive school in the US. And one of the hardest to get into. But, even with the full ride, we still pay a pretty good chunk on our end every semester. Thus the Jeep budget. But it's still cheaper than if we sent him someplace else without the full scholarship. We aren't rich. But we aren't poor either. Sort of in between. Plus we live in Los Angeles. EVERYTHING is expensive here. SO let's just say we're on a budget. He's the first person to go to a big college in my family.
 
Ah, Sarah Lawrence, in Yonkers. Not too far away from me. Well done on your son. You must be proud. Sounds like a hardworking kid.
 
I can see a notification in my email that there is a new reply but it is missing when I click the link back to the thread. Anyway, we just put a later top on the early windshield gasket which is slightly different but still works. You may have to have someone push down on the header to get the hook on the clamp into the slot and then it takes a lot of force to get the latch to close the first few times until the gasket gets compressed in the right area.

The other option is the replace the gasket. Not cheap, not fun, and a PITA.
 
Well it's done! :):):):):) Sorry I couldn't pick up the phone blaine. I was literally in the bathroom placing the last hot skin onto it's frame. I'll ring you up this weekend though. I finished this just in time for family dinner.

Took two tries on the header. And a bit to figure out the uber simple latches that my feeble mind could not comprehend. Finally after 20 minutes the mind opened. And I figured out how to get it to latch. It's all buttoned up tight. Only glitch was a small tear in the drivers side upper door skin. Anybody got any ideas of how to re-enforce that? Or should I just return the top and only exchange the one window skin out? (I'm thinking the latter.)

Fit's tight. The bow brackets were a breeze to install. Now I can see what it's gonna take to remove my roll bar pads for painting. Got a little mold from the rain on one of my seats. No big deal. Wiped right off. I've got new ones coming anyway.

Finally it's done. SO pleased with how the color turned out. And it will look even better (like my avatar) once I can afford to put some black steel rims and off road tires on it. And a small 2" OME lift. Still have to get my spare mounted. Hopefully tomorrow.

The biggest improvement is I can now take my top down and put it back up EASILY. Which wasn't the case with my other frame. I don't know why they sold the other Supertop frame. My only opinion of it is it sucks. Unless there is some intended purpose I am unaware of?

Thank you one and all for helping get thru this mini saga of putting a soft top on - when none of your hardware is co-operating. Big thumbs up to you all! Especially Mrblaine!

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The one tiny split that occurred.

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Looks good! I like the look you are going for.

I also thought this was in order after reading through this thread....whew!

 
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1) Any advice on the rip in my upper door skin? Is there anything to permanently fix that? Or should I just exchange it for a new one? I'm thinking exchange as it looks like that is just going to get worse. I don't mind swapping it out as I have the process down now. Just hoping 4WP's will let me exchange just the window out of a set and then return the new set with just the one bad window. I don't see why they wouldn't.

2) The only weird little thing I found during this install. Well there were many! lol But was that it didn't look like OEM bow brackets had ever been installed. The paint was perfect and the threads appeared to still have paint spray into them and were brand new. Like an OEM bow bracket had never been installed. Did Jeeps come stock with the Supertop frames? I would have thought they were all OEM frames on a new Jeep. Unless someone replaced my roll bars(?). The frame (Supertop) did look old. Like it could have been put on their originally. Or were these frames common early TJ's?

3) I also did not double over the plastic strip and fabric on the header. It was still a very tight fit on the rear end of the top. And is clamped down tightly. But maybe once it warms up this summer - if it gets loose (the top that is) I might go back in and rescrew it on so that it's doubled over. Does this make sense? If you follow the tutorials on line. The way you drill the plastic strip to the header it ends up being doubled over once you flip the top and return the header to its forward position. I did that first. But was having trouble getting the header to clamp down. (USer error. Learned a few minutes later that it was just me not understanding the bracket.) So I redid it so that it wasn't doubled over. Just the plastic strip between the header and windshield upper. It's clamped really tight. I don't have any doubts that it might come out. Just thinking long term wear and tear on the plastic part where the screws go thru.