JLU Soft Top Replacement Fabric Install

[Cjkinwi]

Hey guys, inspired by JP29's thread here, I decided that it was time to tackle replacing the soft top fabric (deck) on my 2018. I had my previous soft top stored in the garage over winter, and a mouse had chewed a 1" hole right above the driver's head, so I knew I wasn't going to be happy with a patch. Ordered the replacement fabric through Quadratec and I installed it over the holiday weekend. While JP29 did a pretty good job of getting me started (and I highly recommend reviewing his thread as well_, I did find some differences that I wanted to highlight.

I started with the soft top frame off the vehicle, laid out on a moving blanket to protect it. Next I removed the screws holding in the plastic frame at the front edge of the windshield header portion and peeled the fabric back. There seemed to be some kind of double sided tape that helped to hold the front edge in place, but I left that in place and it didn't seem to affect installation or removal at all.

Next I removed the 3 screws on each side that held the cable brackets in place.

Then I switched focus to the very rear of the top, which required removing the 2 screws on each corner block.

Then you'll need to drill out the rivets that hold the fabric to the frame. I think I used a 7/64", 1/8", and 3/32" drill bit to remove the heads.

At this point, you can remove the fabric toggles from the brackets on each of the support arms, they just push through.

Now here is where I differed a little from JP29's install. I started by removing the screws holding the arms to the crossbar because I thought that you had to slide the fabric off and on each crossbar individually. Instead, I discovered that the fabric has a spline on it that looks like an arrowhead. If you grab the edge of it with some pliers, you can actually pull it out of each of the crossbars with a lot less disassembly.

In hindsight, I would not have removed those extra screws, it just added more time to the reinstall to get everything put back together. The next hurdle was the fabric loops that hold the paddles in place, which again required some rivet heads to be drilled out.

Then the paddles just slide out of place.

Part 1 --

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[Cjkinwi]

Part 2 --

Next I drilled out the rivet holding the cable to the bracket, as that looked like the easier end to fish through the new top. I left the spring and cable attached to the corner brackets at the rear, and just pulled them out through the old top.

I didn't have a fishing tape, but instead used this sink and drain snake to run the cable through the new top, which worked surprisingly well.

Make sure when you're fishing the cable through that you enter and exit the top through the double slits near the rear window area.

At this point, I connected the new fabric top starting with the 2nd crossmember. Line up the middle notch with the mark on the crossmember, and then squeeze it together with your hand. The arrowhead shaped spline will compress into the slot, then expand and click into place, securing it.

Next I placed the paddles back into the ends of the crossmembers, but the new top did not have the fabric loops to secure them. Quadratec stated that you needed some additional brackets here, but I haven't yet figured out how those are attached or useful. If anyone has a newer style top either without the paddles or without the loops to secure the paddles, I'd appreciate it if you could upload some pictures! In the meantime, I ran a thin bead of 3M Weatherstrip adhesive along the length of the paddle to help secure it in the channel in the crossmember, then reinserted them.

Unfortunately I did not take any photos of the rest of the reinstallation.

Next I reinserted the fabric toggles into the support arm brackets. I struggled with reattaching the rear corners in place for a bit due to the tightness of the fabric, but eventually got there. Just remember that the screw goes in through the support arm, through the crossmember, through the reinforced top fabric, and then into the corner block.

Then I reattached the top to the rear crossmember with 1/8" rivets and replaced the rivets holding the cables to the brackets, which I believe were a bit larger 3/16" rivet. Screw the brackets back to the frame, then pull the front edge of the fabric over the corners and then tighten the plastic piece down to secure it all in place.

I reinstalled the soft top on the Jeep and checked that everything was connected and all the hardware is tight. Unfortunately at this time, when I drop the top I have to check that the paddles stay tucked inside the edge while it's closing, but hopefully I can figure out how they're supposed to be attached to the new top again soon and I'll post an update.

Definitely not as scary as I had originally feared, thanks for the inspiration JP29!

 

[JP29]

Not to necro but don't know how I missed this! Great work and thanks for the shoutout - in my haste I didn't even think to use pliers to feed the top back into the channels - well done!

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