This post refers to a Series III British Land Rover which I own.

A few years ago at a garage sale I found sticks, canvas, a roll bar, and a tail gate with which I could install a soft top on my venerable Landie. That was the first time I actually used paypal to buy something from a stranger face to face without cash.

Last year I finally decided to try the top out. I needed it on the vehicle anyway because I’d taken off the one that came with it so I could do maintenance.

I think an optimum situation would be to have a canvas topped Land Rover AND  a metal top Land Rover. Both have their charm.

To install the canvas top meant buying some parts my car was missing. I needed the lower chain stays and the anti-luce latches and the tie down things that should be just above the latches. Those parts came from England.

This year, I needed cash and to reclaim the space the canvas top would require if I opted to keep it, so when  buyer came along I parted with it and that also was a paypal transaction for the same price I paid originaly.

Which brings me to the hard top installation.

Step 1: round up the parts. The sides were in a main room of my house where I’d installed aluminum and rubber window guides and refurbished the sides. The rear door was against a wall in the same room. The top shell was in the back garage. A piece of metal in the headliner was missing  and after a fruitless search for it I bought an aluminum replacement. During this search, I discovered a bag with even better bits for the tailgate installation than the new ones I’d bought. Turns out I had them all along but didn’t know they were part of my cache of spares. Now I recognized them for what they were. Repair the rip and hole in the front headliner. The fabric got pretty dirty and wrinkled and beat up in the months the top was off the vehicle. The vinyl trim pads also ended up looking like a suit someone slept in.

Step 2: set the sides in place on the tub and install the three anchor bolts that hold them there. The ones for the outer anchors were trouble. All were bent at the threads and one was just a long bolt. I found new bolts in my bone yard and did something I maybe ought not to have for the sake of maintenance simplicity – I used the replacement bolts despite that they were all different sizes. If someone other than me removes the top then they will find an anchor that takes a half inch wrench, one that takes a 9/16″, one with a 5/8″ and one with 3/4″ heads. It’s what was on hand. Sorry, future me.

Step 3: Straddle the top of the side pieces with bars I can rest the top upon to position it. Fetch the top from the back garage. Fashion the new metal band for the hem in  for the side of the headliner because the original piece hid until the top was all installed. Remove the paint and rust from the other headliner hem steel piece and paint it with automotive oil based paint. Install it in the headliner and screw the headliner in place. This is the point where I wish I had reglued the padding in advance and had to take care of that. The wires for the dome light were present only to the front of the top, terminated with bullet connectors. No wonder the light had never worked. No power to it! Purple wire. Purple-white wire. Purple is power, purple white is trace. Crimp in place a black wire on purple and red wire on purple white. Place top on the metal that straddles the side pieces. With the top nearly in place, remove them.

Step 4: secure the top with bolts. For this I went to the hardware store and picked up 16 sets of 5/16″ fine thread bolts/washers/nuts. Later, I would discover that I had put most of the new ones I had already bought for this in the cubby box so they wouldn’t be lost. Now I have extra. I think there are 18 bolts on the sides and back plus 10 over the windscreen to hold the top cap on. The process is this – start with one bolt at an end. Install another at the other end. Don’t tighten any more than to prove resistance. Using a drift pin, align the rest of the holes and add bolts. Tighten all the bolts.

Step 5: Install the eyebrow – the aluminum shade over the windscreen

Step 6: Glue the headliner pad to the roof with silicon. Install front and rear head liners.

Step 7: Install the padded trim that goes between side windows and headliner, over the doors, and at the top of the windscreen. This required making little brackets for the rear mount on the doors. One, I made. The other, not yet. Remove the bolts over the upper seat belt harness and replace with smaller ones the same side as the rest. It was necessary to start with longer ones, but they got in the way later.  Route the dome lamp wires to go down the driver side door area after discovering that using the center piece between the windscreens is not my best choice.

Step 8: Install the dome light. It is switch operated but the switch is bad. So I repair it by disassembling it and soldering wires to the connectors. The use of wire nuts to connect the lamp to power is impractical so I soldered the power leads to the wires for the lamp, painted them with liquid insulator, and wrapped them in electrical tape. Install the fixture base. Glue the awkward black gasket to the base. I had to drill a couple holes for the cap mount. I bought two 6/32 machine screws that then decided not to work. previously, tests showed that was the right size to thread into the base. Now the holes were too big. I grabbed different screws that now worked because I’d drilled the holes (this was not to facilitate the screws in the base plate but to give them somewhere to go past it). Apparently the dome light was optional equipment.

Step 9: weather strip the rear hatch. I began by riveting the gasket material. That may have worked in the Sahara, but I decided to get weatherstrip glue. After installing the weather strip I determined I’d aligned it wrong and pulled it all back out.

Step 10: Install the rear door. Grease the hinge swivel balls and bolt it in. Secure the door stay. Pet the cat.

Step 11: install the roof rack bars.

Step 12: Install weatherstripping around all the doors. Hook up speaker wires. Mount the spare tire to the rear door instead of the bonnet.

Step 13: Install all the seatbelts again. 3 point retractables in the front and four old fashioned lap belts in the back. In case I haven’t mentioned it, the old style connections that took an eye bolt or a suitably prepared seatbelt can be used to hold down modern slotted mounts. Do it that way and you can mount either type belt.