Hard top to soft top conversion (pics)

[Ranger429]

So I'm not big on the aluminum rail screwed in the body of the Bronco nor do I much care for the look of it while the top is off. I decided to take an old hard top and modify it to accept my soft top. The screw holes in the body I plan on putting some paintable silicone over and then touching up with some paint. I wish I had done this before I had the body repainted but live and learn. Well here's the pics.

1st thing to do was figure out the cut line. I wanted to keep enough of the old top to keep the rigidity of the top.

When I cut the top off the sides had broken the bonding. I'll get this fixed later.

What I ended up with after cutting.

I found a guy on ebay that had the snaps I needed. I also hit the parts store for the fiberglass material.

So after test fitting the top and getting some snaps in place this is how it is going to look.

For the back I am going to use a piece of aluminum angle iron to mount the snaps to.

Now comes the fun, fiberglass. I'd suggest wearing long sleeves when sanding this stuff as it is pretty itchy.

I wanted to add some fiberglass mat on the inside where the eak joint was after cutting.

After that I was able to build up in layers the inside.

In the very center of the top it was cracked. I clamped it back together and added some more mat to the inside area.

For the center bracket rod supports I am going to fiberglass those to the top so there are no unnecessary screws going into the body.

And this is where it is at now. Some more sanding and it will be ready for a final coat of bondo to finish it up.

More pics to come as progress continues.

 

[dragogt]

Coool, that aught to have a factory look to it, Lookin Good so far.

 

[Ranger429]

Thanks Aaron.

Well here is how it is looking now. A little more work to the back of it and some black paint and it should look pretty good.

 

[Ranger429]

I was able to get it finished today. Heres the final pics.

 

[Skandocious]

Wow that looks awesome!! Nice work dude, seriously.

 

[Ranger429]

Thank you Chris.

 

[dragogt]

Wow that looks awesome!! Nice work dude, seriously.

No doubt, all the TLC you put in to it seriously paid off.

 

[Skandocious]

Question: The picture in your signature shows that it had a soft top before... What happened to that one?

 

[Ranger429]

Thanks dragogt.

Chris, that is the same one. When I first installed the soft top I drilled and screwed the aluminum brackets that a soft top comes with into the Bronco. After seeing how terrible it looked and running across an article in BD about a guy that did this same conversion to a newer Bronco it didn't take me long to figure out which way to go. Now all I have to do is figure out how to get rid of those holes I drilled into a once pristine body. I'm probably going to use a paintable silicone and touch them up that way. I don't even want to think about sending it in for welding and paint now. I'd be to afraid they could not match the silver perfectly.

 

[Skandocious]

Yeah... That's rough man I don't think I woulda been able to bring the drill bit down to such a nice lookin' truck, just don't have the strength, lol.