Tech
POINT YOUR PHONE CAMERA AT THIS CODE TO SEE VIDEO OF VERNE RESTORING HIS BRONCO HARDTOP
DIY HARDTOP RESTO
SOURCES LizardSkin lizardskin.com POR-15 por15.com
Summit Racing summitracing.com
1 Rust—it’s a problem for any steel part, including our early Bronco top. If the top were fiberglass or composite we wouldn’t have rust, but might have cracks or other damage to repair.
A low-buck renewal of our old, weathered Bronco top By Verne Simons editor@fourwheeler.com Photos: Verne Simons
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emovable hardtops are common in the off-road world and can be found on Jeep CJs and Wranglers, International Scouts, Ford Broncos, Chevy Blazers, Land Rover Defenders and Series vehicles, and Daihatsu Rockys. There are even a few aftermarket sources for Suzuki Samurais and Geo Trackers. Hardtops offer a sealed interior environment when you want it but can be relatively easily removed when you want open-air wheeling. Some tops are made from composite materials like fiberglass or plastics while others are made of steel or aluminum. The focus of this article is an early Ford Bronco hardtop that had seen better days. There was some rust in the top that needed to be patched to keep the top in service and prevent leaks and future damage from the elements. Follow along as we spend time making this top like new and know that while some of the techniques may be slightly different, most of the ideas we use here can be applied to fiberglass or aluminum tops as well.
68 OCTOBER 2022 FOUR WHEELER
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What We Started With As you can see in the following photos, our Bronco hardtop had a bad case of steel cancer, aka rust. A few spots just showed some surface rust while others looked like Swiss cheese. The worst parts were the rear lift gate, the driprails running around the perimeter of the top, and the areas just inboard of the driprails, inside the top. These are all areas where debris had gotten trapped with moisture and rust had set in. Short of pulling the glass out of the top and popping apart the various components, we decided to attack the areas we could access to halt the rust and seal them from the elements. This meant spot-treating the surface rust, grinding it out, or cutting out pieces and welding in new patches or using POR-15 to treat areas where we couldn’t clean or cut the rust out. fourwheeler.com
