New Soft top for my jimny

Well you lot,here go's.
I bit the bullet and went and bought a new soft top for my jimny from them who do's them,
they call them selves M C L MONSOON Limmited.this was on the Wednesdaysaid to me it would there by Friday,rang to find out where it was and was told ,oh it's not there yet then(NO),so were is it then.It must be in the delivery van still, I'll see where it is and ring you back ,na no phone call !!!!!!!!!!
Monday has come and at 9.30 am it came,opened it ,nice one ,very pleased in what it see,very nice you.
I have the old type Mk 1 soft top with the zip side windows and in my wisdom i I thought I would treat my self to a new one.It is the new type,the Mk 2 soft top with side bars and press studs all round,nice.
I took the old one off,no probs there,fitted the new side bars( By the way,MAKE SURE IT IS DONE IN A WARM GARAGE TO KEEP IT SOFT BECAUSE IT WILL STRETCH A BIT)fitted the top on ,just make sure you as they say in fiitting it,now that looks the dog do da's mm nice one.
Now the front one to do ,....Undo the front clips,fold back and take of or slip it out of the groove,undoing the 4 screws
first,great ,getting on fine here,mmm right,the new top is for a Mk2 and it is a Mk 1 old top,it does not tell you that in the paper work ,i'll ring them again,hello I said,Mr Kaye here again,my new jimny front roof top seems wrong somehow,it will not go in the groove as it should,oh does it not?? mm leave that with me (( and I will ring you back))
she did not ,,, well that's after spending £350 with them :pinch: yes I did.
I have fitted it now but only after a lot of mods to the front bar,now it fits very nice and tight,all in all a nice job done.
BUT it's pity the costomer after sales
was not A LOT BETTER ,if you say you will ring back then ring back. please!!!!!

I got my new soft top from monsoon and my jinmy is also a MK1, the soft top fitted perfect and only took me hour 30 mins to fit and monsoons services was great.
The frames on the MK2 is the same as the MK1 the only thing different is the MK2 as press studs fitted as standard.
www.monsoon4x4.co.uk/images/Fitting%20In...ng%20Instruction.pdf

Think I'll stick with my top, locally made, supplied and fitted in under 4 hours from scratch, $500



All Stitched Up have made many since for my friends. I am about to change the design slightly. Going to fit a bar around the bottom end, flat steel or more likely alloy, and put press-studs on that so that the rear can be lifted for access to the "Boot" without having to undo any of the press-studs. I figure 2 tiedowns of the sort that used to fit on Moke bonnets would be used to secure the bar/softtop to rear door.

dirtydogz wrote: I got my new soft top from monsoon and my jinmy is also a MK1, the soft top fitted perfect and only took me hour 30 mins to fit and monsoons services was great.
The frames on the MK2 is the same as the MK1 the only thing different is the MK2 as press studs fitted as standard.
www.monsoon4x4.co.uk/images/Fitting%20In...ng%20Instruction.pdf

As said the back fold down roof fitted ok and also I said I had to fit the new side bars so that the side studs to fit onto as part of the kit which they send to make it Mk2 from the Mk1 with the side windows.
It was the front roof I was talking about,I take it you change yours as well with the Mk2 new roof as it not the same
Type of fitting as the Mk1 as said.I also said they did not ring back twice.not very helpfull but the roof is very good.

gaffertoo wrote:

dirtydogz wrote: I got my new soft top from monsoon and my jinmy is also a MK1, the soft top fitted perfect and only took me hour 30 mins to fit and monsoons services was great.
The frames on the MK2 is the same as the MK1 the only thing different is the MK2 as press studs fitted as standard.
www.monsoon4x4.co.uk/images/Fitting%20In...ng%20Instruction.pdf

As said the back fold down roof fitted ok and also I said I had to fit the new side bars so that the side studs to fit onto as part of the kit which they send to make it Mk2 from the Mk1 with the side windows.
It was the front roof I was talking about,I take it you change yours as well with the Mk2 new roof as it not the same
Type of fitting as the Mk1 as said.I also said they did not ring back twice.not very helpfull but the roof is very good.

Old roof up for sale in the adds side of BigJimny for sales.

Hi Gaffertoo. Welcome to the gloroius world of soft top Jimnys, where you can have the best of both worlds.

Now you have nice new hood you will be able to enjoy the jimny experience even more!

As you might guess I'm a big fan of the Jimny softop and also a big fan of moonson hoods. So much so that I have replaced standard hoods on two soft top jimny's. First I did my 2003 plate Mk1 and found the fit, quality and service to be really good from Monsoon.

Earlier this year I was lucky enough to find one of the later VVT Softop Jimnys with the Mk2 hoods. The standard Suzuki fit Mk2 hoods are not the best of fits and are fiddly to take down and put up. So I decided to replace with another Moonson hood. Again I found the service to be good and product to be spot on.

Mk1 and Mk2 monsoon kits only differ in that the Mk1 includes the metal frames with poppers and the Mk2 does not as they are already fitted as standard.

I would seriously suggest to anyone thinking of upgrading their Mk2 hood to do it and to also look carefully at the Suzuki fit side rails. They are not as well made as the moonson version and on reflection I could have saved myself a good couple of hourse by paying the extra £40 for the Monsoon rails. The problem is that the poppers are incorrectly placed on std Suzuki rails and I found I had to adjust each one to make the hood fit as I would like it, so that now, the hood is real easy to put up and take down.

I had no problem at all fitting the front section on either car. My experience is the same as Dogz, in that the front section was a straight forward fit.

Sorry to hear you had problems and that you did not have the same customer experience as others Monsoon customers. I would hope that this is the exception as Monsoon are a small family run business that prides itself on good service and customer satisfaction. At least, that has been my experience with them.

Here is a photo of my old Mk1 with monsoon hood in the snow last year. Photo taken at Hatfield House, Herts.


And here is a photo of my VVT Mk2 with my recently fitted Kuhmo 195 80 x 15 on Black modular wheels. Photo taken on a recent trip to Wales and the Elan valley on the mountain road across to Aberystwyth.


I am desperate to find some spare time before Christmas to fit the trialMaster 2" kit I have recently purchased. Might take Dogz up on his offer to help.

One other thing not related to hoods. I might be off to Tokyo with work and will find time to check out Jimny accessory shops like Suzi Sports - SuzySports.jp . Not sure I will mange to get a bumper in my suitcase!!

Cheers all.

Paul
Hertford