Adding a hard top

[Hogwash]

Does a jeep that has never had a hard top need a weather stripping kit or would it have come with everything needed?

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[mark203]

If you want the window washer and wiper to work, you'll need to add more than the hard top and the weather stripping. There is a wire harness, changes to the wiper stem on the steering wheel for example. If you don't care about any of those things working, then no worries.

 

[Cartman]

And you have to buy also hardtop.mounting bracket set.

 

[LuvHydro]

Yep, you'll need that hardtop bracket set for the Freedom Panels to lock on to.

In my search I found 4 types.

The MOPAR OEM ones, big money, the DV8 branded ones, pricey IMO, painted steel ones sold on Amazon and the aluminum ones all over Ebay, AliExpress, etc.

I will report on the painted steel Amazon ones that are arriving here Monday. Regardless of the product description, my gut tells me they are going to be aluminum, but we shall see.

If you want the wiper/defrost to work, that is a whole different ballgame requiring some major cash, teardown and possible dealer programming from what I can tell.

Next time I will just order the dual top group.

 

[fczabala]

edit - I didn’t have to add any weatherstripping, all I did was get brackets for freedom panels and run the wires/hose for the washers/wipers

I used the dv8 brackets and the wiring/hose kit from mopar, brackets were around 100 and wiring/hoses was around 250-300 iirc (a pain to get the wires thru the firewall though but got it done in a day)

used jscan for programming the kit but I did have to swap the existing clockspring on my steering wheel because the one I got with the kit wasn’t compatible, not too bad, just be careful not to snap the clips

 

[NJJeep Guy]

The Dv8 brackets are nice. Installation is a pain unless you truly remove the plastic trim blocking access. All the videos show moving the trim just enough but damn my hand hurt after getting those brackets in.

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