Thank you much sir. It was written in the hopes of filling in a lot of the questions that I'm sure many people have when they sit down and consider spending the money that it costs to make the jump to a hardtop. As I've stated many times before, if it helps just one person, it's served it's purpose.

 

Some people come across situations where their latches aren't holding together as strongly as they originally were when new, but provided that you aren't currently having such problems with your latches, there shouldn't be any need to purchase new ones (unless you really just want the convenience of keeping the latches on both (hardtop/soft top) for when you choose to take the top off and just go without having to install them back between each other.)

 

Any luck with getting a hold of them/ordering?

 

Just did this, and it definitely works better than the VIS stripping. It pretty much closes all gaps and wind noise from the side. The only downside is that is sits so high! I tried installing it with a friend sitting on top of the hardtop but that didn't do much good...

LittleGreenMan - On the freeway at speeds of 70+ mph, does the back of your hardtop lift a little revealing a small gap letting in wind?

 

Ok, I installed my stripping yesterday. Like th one in the picture. IT was the only one i could find. It works great, perfect length. The hardtop does sit a little on the high side in the back, but i rather it sit higher, than sit on my freshly painted body.

The only downside, is that I have to figure out a way to make the front sit cleaner. The hardtop was sitting WAY TOO LOW, so when i would shut the door, the window would hit the hardtop. So i put a different kind of weather stripping under the front, and there's a small gap between the hardtop and the front part of the window area.

 

Does it hit your window on both sides or just one? Mines does that too but only on the driver's side, and i dont know what would be causing only one side to do this.

 

Yeah, like you mentioned, the top does sit a bit higher than it would with the VIS stripping on there, but like some of the other members mentioned, I would prefer it to sit a bit higher and have all the seals covered from exterior elements as opposed to having it sit flush but constantly worrying about anything and everything that could get in to the interior cabin area.

In reference to you question about the 70+mph freeway speeds lifting up the back end, I haven't had any such issues with mine. I've had mine up to roughly about 100mph and even at those speeds there was no lifting nor any wind noise. Are you sure the lifting up isn't coming from something to do with air pressure getting through the rear window sealing?

On a side note, I'm glad to hear that the stripping that I referenced in this thread did the job for you. In the long run you're going to be a lot better off than with that of having gone with the VIS stripping!

 

Glad to hear the stripping did the job for you!

In reference to the issue with the front sitting so low, I have heard many people with the VIS tops mention having the same situation that theres were sitting a lot lower than it technically should. I'm not sure if I just got lucky or what, but I really honestly hardly ever used my soft top before the hard top was acquired, thus the stripping on the front windshield hardly ever got that much of a workout. When I installed the hard top it pretty much sat perfectly thanks to the OEM stripping still holding it's own even though it's an '03 and I've had no issues with the glass hitting the hard top when the doors or shut, or anything similar to such.

Most people have had to resort to doing like you did with installing new stripping on the front because of experiencing the same issues with the low fit, I haven't heard much though about the door closing issues but I do see how such could result from changing the stripping on the front. What sort of stripping did you replace the OEM one with? Same dimensions and height as the stock one?

 

It confuses me that you all are having an issue with this, yet I didn't even run in to such a problem.

Did you line the bottom of the top with the new stripping using the same path, like it's perfectly even and wrapped the same way on both sides if you flipped the top over upside down? If you have and double checked this, the only other thing I could imagine contributing to it possibly hitting one side and not the other is that perhaps that when your friend was pushing down on it trying to get it more flush that perhaps it recessed a bit more on one side than the other, or perhaps like I said, maybe it pushed the alignment of the stripping install path a little off more so than it is on the opposite side?

 

Thanks for the responses greenman! I think the rear window sealing is good. Are you saying any little air getting in will cause enough air pressure inside to lift it up? Because on both of the sides by the corner of the window there is a little hole, probably a few cm's, but I don't know if this is enough to cause a lift. And the window hitting the hardtop was a problem even before using the new stripping, it must've been a bad mold or something..