Vintage Bestop soft top install help needed...

I was lucky enough to get a NOS white Bestop!!!

My question is this...does anyone have a set of vintage (20+ years old) set of instructions? My top has a front bead that goes into the window channel that's unlike anything I've ever seen before. Sort of a soft viynl J extrusion. Sound familiar to anyone? I called Bestop and they were baffled. I'm sending them a picture, but I thought I'd ask the combined experts here.

 

Here's a couple of pics...

 

Well, I got a reply via E-Mail from Amy at Bestop this morning. Man, that was fast! Their customer service is, and always has been, awesome. I also put a plug in for starting making Jeepster tops in white, maybe a few calls to customer service would further our case.

Hello Randy,
We looked at this top, this top is pre-1981. This really is an old top, this top was made before Bestop really was Bestop. That was really neat to see. The plastic strip would need to be slid into the c-channel, the outter lip only. when inside the channel it will be at a slant and will not come out of the channel. It will look different because there is not a round tube that would take up the whole inside of the channel, this was the correct design. The slanted plastic can move slightly in the channel, however, not enough to come loose and escape.

The only thing that I could think of why the horizontal rods would be slanting down would be if they were possibly mounted too far forward, the bow mount brackets. This would cause them to have to slant forward. I have attached a copy of the recent installation instructions. These should be very similar if not exact. Please let me know how everything works out and if you wouldn't mind we would love to see a picture of the top installed on the vehicle.

I will forward this e-mail about bringing back a white top to marketing, in hopes they will.

Thank you for your patience,
Amy