Soft Top

I was wondering where i could find a soft top for my truck(not a fast back) what ever happened to Specialty Top Co?

Also how much does a bolt in roll bar help in rollovers?(like the 4pt from jeffs)

These are two completely different questions.

To answer the second question first, a *proper* roll-bar (NOT a light-bar) helps tremendously in a rollover, no real rocket science involved there. Buy a good one (inteded to actually reinforce the body in a roll-over event instead of just being something designed as a place to bolt lights), install it correctly and you just may save yourself or a passenger from significant bodily injury or worse.

As far as the soft-top question goes, since this question gets asked two or three times a month if you look in the upper right corner of the screen you'll see a tab marked "search". If you click on it and type in "soft top" (please use the quotation marks) and make sure you *un*check the box that says "search this forum only" then you'll get all SORTS of info and I absolutely guarantee that the heavens will part and all the answers will be revealed to you, ya just have to do a TINY bit of legwork. In case you're not able to do that the VERY short answer is that soft-tops.com is THE (read that again and memorize it), repeat THE only game in town. If you want to purchase a soft top from an actual vendor soft-tops.com is THE only choice you have. They offer fastback type tops and that's it. If you have an issue with that or want to complain then please see the archives for the appropriate wailing wall. READ THE ARCHIVES, that's why they exist. If you want something different then search Ebay, Craigslist or you local WantAds but nobody here has one.

http://sf2000.registeredsite.com/~user8531...oduct_Code=FBST

Best you're going to get without searching out & finding a used one on your own.

Used or purchased & never installed tops from different Mfg's are out there but to be honest they don't usually last long. More often than not by the time someone from the forum spots them & posts the info for other members they've been sold so if you *really* want a different style then you'll have to commit yourself to a search.Ck each & every day (several times a day if you're savvy) and chances are that within 6-9 months you'll spot one or two. Bid agressively and you stand a good chance of winning one. I wish there were something more optimistic I could say but that's the hard truth of it. For reasons that nobody understands the only Mfg's except Soft-Tops.com got out of the game and the ONLY new soft tops available are the fastback style that they offer. Now this isn't a problem if you're like me and actually LIKE the fastback style but otherwise I apologize because you're just $hit out of luck.

Hopefully someday soon someone else will realize there are several million 80-96 Broncos still out there and pickup the torch & run with it, but until then it is what it is and we can only deal with what's out there waiting to be purchased. Search your local WantAds & Craiglists and don't give up. chances are it may take 12-20 months to find what you want but if you keep looking you'll probably find it and I know for SURE that if you stop looking you *won't* find it. Sorry man, wish I had something better but that's the deal.

JUST SO YOU KNOW,YOU CAN STILL FIND USED SOFT TOPS.I JUST TRADED MY HARD TOP AND RUSTY TAILGATE WITH GLASS FOR A STC TOP AND TAIL GATE WITH NO GLASS.THE GUYS WIFE WOULD NOT LET HIM PUT THEIR KIDS IN IT WITH THE SOFT TOP.

I wish I had the tenacity to start a production shop for this item!!

I can see it now...hills that is, swimmin' pools, movie stars...

olddog82 said:

JUST SO YOU KNOW,YOU CAN STILL FIND USED SOFT TOPS.I JUST TRADED MY HARD TOP AND RUSTY TAILGATE WITH GLASS FOR A STC TOP AND TAIL GATE WITH NO GLASS.THE GUYS WIFE WOULD NOT LET HIM PUT THEIR KIDS IN IT WITH THE SOFT TOP.

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lucky dog is more like it....

what happened to his original tailgate? or was it just the same tail gate minus the window? or is that a nessary swap for a soft top?

madmaysey said:

what happened to his original tailgate? or was it just the same tail gate minus the window? or is that a nessary swap for a soft top?

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Chances are the other guys original tailgate rusted out on the bottom. The problem is VERY common w/Broncos & Blazers. After awhile the whetherstripping around the rear window loosens up and starts letting in water. The drain holes tend to clog up and then the water sits in the tailgate until it begins to rust it from in inside out. Since you can't see this happening until the rust breaks thru to the surface by the time you realize there's a problem the tailgate shell is usually ruined. Tailgates are THE most frequently repaired & replaced item on Broncos.

To answer the second part of the question, no you don't need do or swap anything with the tailgates to install a softtop. Most of them secure the rear of the top to the tailgate with snaps or rods but you don't need to change anything. All Broncos have the same tailgate, the only differences are the rear trim package changed a few times but the shells are all the same & interchange between all 80-96's

Well this kinda sucks, i cant believe theres not a place that doesnt hake regular style tops for broncos, guess im stickin with the hard top because i really hate the fastback one

Well yeah, then it does **** for you, but for those of us who actually like the fastback look everything's cool. I would still *strongly* encourage you to look thru Ebay & CraigsList daily because if you look back thru the older posts there have to be 7 or 8 guys who've found them within a week or two of starting to look. ****, even if you look for a month or more, at the end of the day you still have what you wanted. If that doesn't appeal to you then ck out your local auto upholstery & boat shops, either one of them can fab you one for pretty close to what you would have paid for something new anyways. Also, consider this. If you're interested in running a full cage or at least a rear-cage then it's nothing to easily fab your own (or have it done locally dirt cheap) bikini top. It looks good and it compliments the cage big-time. Just something you might want to kick around.

Look on craiglist extensively for a STC of Kayline soft top. If I spend about three hours a night I usually find one in a week. But the problem is when I do find one, it's as a package w the truck and NOT something they want to part out. And the worst part of that is that they usually sell the truck for 2,000 +/- and the top can go for almost 1,000 on ebay if it's good enough.

Hint for you. Look around the outlying states and areas that have mountain ranges because if you think about it most people would want to have a bronco for the beach or rock crawling. I've had luck finding a few (that still didn't want to sell just the top) tops that way. Maybe you will get lucky. BE AGGRESSIVE!

I'm sick of haggeling people I'm going to get a fast back soon. And Bidi usually is the first one to spot if someone else hasn't so good hunting.

bryan thomas said:

And Bidi usually is the first one to spot if someone else hasn't so good hunting.

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Yeah, I thought the same thing to but didn't want to say anything. He's got some kind of Bronco Voodoo doll or something but it's simply unnatural the way he finds them. Maybe that's why he blows an engine twice a year. /emoticons/[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" />

HAHA, I bet it's his baby Dave. He'll sit on his lap at the computer and when he does the universe and all the planets align, a force is waved over the world wide web and soft tops appear out of no where. /emoticons/[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" /> It's truly magical. Wowee! Or he could just have a Bronco Voodoo Doll, haha. He's got something not natural about his hunting tactics.

Redneck86 said:

Well this kinda sucks, i cant believe theres not a place that doesnt hake regular style tops for broncos, guess im stickin with the hard top because i really hate the fastback one

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Have you looked at the Skyler soft tonneau? You lose the rear seat, but looks so much better. No drilling.

I contacted Skyler about buying the frame only and they never wrote or called back.

Without too much money these could be made.

I wish someone like J. Duff, Tom's or Jeff's could find it in their heart to hire Jed to spearhead the project using their start-up cash. hint...hint...hint

Yeah, I've heard the same story from a couple other guys who's tried contacting them. Whoever's runnig Skyler or owns the name simply isn't talking to *anyone*. They don't respond to Emails & phone lines are either disconnected or ring endlessly. I agree that it's a fairly simple design & the only reason I can think of why Jeff's, Duff or one of the other Bronco-centric companies *hasn't* run with the ball yet is that someone MUST own a patent on the frame/track systems and that's what's keeping anyone else from jumping on it. Who-ever owns it must figure that eventually demand will build to the point where one of the major players is willing to meet their price for buying/leasing the patent rights.

Years ago when I owned one I used to belong to a forum for Logan lathe owners. Logan stopped making lathes 20-30 yrs ago but the company morphed into the Logan actuator Company yrs ago and is still in the family. One his grandsons is still an owner and active in the Lathe group. He would accasionally jump into threads to let guys know just *why* certain parts were exceptionally expensive or hard/impossible to find and a lot of time it had to do with patent rights being transfered to one company or another or only having been leased for a certain number of years. Stuff like that. I only mention it because it's a shame that someone from Jeff's or one of the other Bronco-specific companies isn't a contributor who could shed some light on what the *actual* deal is with something like this. The ONLY reason I can think of for one of the Bronco suppliers to have NOT jumped all over this is that there HAS to be some sort of patent in force. Why go thru the trouble & expense of tooling up, advertising, selling a few hundred/thousand of these things only to get a letter from the patent owner stating that he wants's 80% of all the proceeds from those past & future sales ? Unfortunately a lot of the time the morons who now own these patents seem to think they're small goldmines and they *actually* insist on 80% OR MORE of the profits and if they can't get anyone to agree then they figure they'll just withhold their product until market pressure forces someone to meet their insane price. Since no sane business attorney would ever advise someone to pay that much everything sits in limbo. Maybe that isn't the case here, I simply don't know & without an insider somewhere in the loop to clue us in chances are none of us will ever know. Unless of course Jed plows ahead with his plans and then lets us know just *who* it is that sends him the Cease & Desist letter /emoticons/[email protected] 2x" width="20" height="20" />