Video Review & Installation

Ryan: This replacement soft top with tinted windows in black diamond is for those of you that have a four-door JK that need a replacement soft top for your Jeep. This is going to be nice, easy one out of three wrench installation, and we'll show you how to do it in just a second. So when you're shopping for soft tops, you'll find three main categories. One is going to be the replacement soft top, which is this style. This is just the soft material, the top itself and the windows designed to be used on a factory or factory-style soft top frame that you already have that's in good working order. If you're looking for a full or a complete replacement soft top, those are available as well. They're not only going to have the soft materials but also include the frame and all the hardware.And finally, the third category is going to be those top center non-factory-like. They're either going to add or subtract features. They're gonna look a little bit different, and they can wildly vary in price depending on whether they're very high-quality and add a bunch of features or maybe a little lower quality and subtract a bunch. But again, if we're looking in this replacement soft top category, you're going to already have a soft top on your Jeep. You're going to have a frame and hardware that's in good working order, and you just need to replace the soft materials. Your windows are scratched, cracked, maybe your top is worn out, coming apart at the seams or, God forbid, it was cut. Whatever the case may be, this is going to be a replacement for those types of scenarios. Of course, this is going to be a little bit less expensive than a complete replacement top because it doesn't include all of the hardware.So, for all intents and purposes, this is going to be a factory top. This is going to be a black diamond top, which is going to be the standard material that was offered with the JK, not the premium material that was offered a little bit in the later years of the JK. So a little thinner than that premium material, but again, pretty much what you would expect on a factory JK in the earlier years. This is going to be something that is going to look factory. It's going to function just like the factory top. It's going to include all of the same components that you would expect on your factory top.This top is going to come in right around that $325 mark. I do think that's going to be a pretty good deal for what you're going to get here. There are going to be tops that are even higher quality, made of even higher quality materials that are going to be more expensive, but if you're looking to save a little bit of money and you want something that's gonna be pretty much like what you would expect to come on your JK from the factory, one of those earlier year JKs, this is going to be that for you. This is going to be a nice, easy one out of three wrench install, and we're going to show you how to do it right now.Man: All right. Tools used for this install, Phillips head screwdriver, needle-nose pliers, tape, optional is a drill and an impact. All right. Our first step is going to be removing our side and rear windows. All right. Now we're going to remove the rear window. Start over here by the zipper. Pull down your top to give you a little more room. We're going to remove the bar, and we're actually going to keep the bar for the new top. And that just slides out just like that. All right. To relieve some tension at the top, we are gonna pop the corners out. Just pull down on the rear bow.All right. Now we are going to undo the top and on both sides. All right. Now we're in the rear, we're gonna be taking these screws out of the rearmost bow. There are four Phillips heads, and we're gonna be keeping this hardware for later. All right. Now we're just above the rear passenger seats. We're gonna be removing these four screws connecting this bow. All right. Now we're going to flip up our header panel. That's going to reveal our last five screws that we need to get to for our last bow. All right. Now, we're going to get ready to get started to work on our header panel.All right. Now we're gonna be bringing the frame and the header panel toward rear of the Jeep, then we're gonna be removing the four screws on both sides of the header panel. As you can see, this metal tab is attached to this spring. All right. Now, with your top back up and in the folded position, we're going to be working on our spring next. Now the spring is hidden in this and we're going to have to get this tension off of this. Now I'm gonna use a set of needle-nose pliers, get on the backside of it...and use a set of needle-nose pliers and get on the backside, and just pull that out.Now, one thing you can do is when we take this top off, you don't want this spring banging around. You can tuck it back into this little slot. All right. Then we're going to take the spring off of the passenger side as well. All right. Now we're going to put the top back up into its natural position, and then we're gonna bring the top all the way onto the hood of the Jeep. We're gonna do it in sections, though. We're going to bring this forward. Get on the other side, bring this forward as well until you look just like that. You can even bring these under the hood, and then we'll fold it up when we're finished with the header panel.All right. Now that we're back inside the Jeep, we're going to latch the header panel back down. All right. Now we're gonna remove the 27 screws holding the header panel to the soft-top itself. All right. Now we're gonna take the header retaining plate off the top of the header. And you can see that there was tape used last time. We're gonna be doing the same thing. All right. Now you can remove your old top. And we're just going to roll it up and set it off to the side, and then get our new top into place.All right. So now that we have our new soft top pretty much the same way that we took off our old one, just reversed. It's best to leave these out in the sun for about two hours at any temperatures above 72 degrees. That makes it a little bit more malleable and a little bit easier to work with. You'll see that this channel right here is where this section of the top will sit, and you're gonna want to make sure that you're equal and even on both sides. Now I have about 2.5 inches of overhang there. There is a center marked out of here, and you can see this warning label. It is right near the center. Keep working your way down and make sure that everything's even. Yeah, that looks just about right. Now I got some tape ready on the side, and we're going to tape this into place before we put any screws in.All right. Now we're ready to work with our header panel. I'm going to drop this into place, and we're going to make sure that the soft top is in that ridge or in that gap there. Then we're gonna start at our corners here. Just put the two screws in the corner. All right. Now we're ready to tighten down the passenger side of the header plate. All right. Now we're gonna reinstall the rest of our screws into the header panel. All right. Now we're gonna move the new soft-top to the rear of the Jeep, cover our passenger area up.All right. Now we're gonna move our header panel to the rear. All right. Now we are going to reinstall our new metal flag and fabric flag onto the header. I'm just gonna use a little drill bit to just see my way through this fabric. And we are still using the factory hardware. It's best to just try to get one at a time here. I'm trying to get this fabric over just a little bit. All right. I'm gonna repeat this process on the passenger side as well. All right. Now, working on the passenger side, I'm just gonna do the same thing.All right. Now your kit does include some new rubber strips. We're just gonna put those over the top to protect your screws from scratching anything. Same deal on the passenger side. All right. Now we are going to put the soft top back up onto the frame. I'm going to slide it in, making sure that it latches into place just like that on both sides. Now we are going to put the header panel back down, not all the way in. Do not latch it. We don't want to put tension. We are going to be working on our spring. All right. Now we're gonna take a pair of needle-nose pliers and our spring, and we are going to install it.I'm gonna do that on the passenger side as well. All right. Now we're gonna bring our header panel back forward, but we are not going to latch it. All right. Now, we are going to use our factory screws and connect our new top to our old bows. And what I'm doing here can be replicated on all the bows going forward. Now with your new top screwed down to your old bows, we are going to lower our header panel back into place and secure this for the final time.All right. Now we are going to install our windows. It wasn't that sunny out today so we weren't able to flatten them out there, but I do recommend sitting them out there for at least two hours. All right. Let me put it in the door here. All right. We're gonna install the other window now. Same process. Get your zipper on the top first. All right. And lock in the bottom. All right. Now we're ready to install our rear window back onto our rear bar. This is just gonna go right here into the channel. Get this started. I'm going to start our zipper. The zipper is going to start on the driver side. Make sure that the zipper seats all the way down to the bottom, and then you can start your zipper up and around.All right. That's gonna wrap up my install of the replacement soft top. For all things Wrangler, keep it here at extremeterrain.com.