Anyone have any fixes for wind noise coming from the header on these damn things?

 

Bestop rep told me to use a mallet to make the seal better. Gotta wonder about a company's design that needs a mallet to make it better. They are working very slowly on a new header for the 08-09 JK's. Good luck.

 

Wow why the hell do I need to make there product work? quAlity has gone down the crapper the last few years!

 

Turn the radio up....

corey d

 

ya i thought it was pretty funny too when they told me that the gallons of water that was leaking in through the seam above the soundbar was normal and to fix it i should get some sort of sealant... pretty shitty that they are ok with sending a product that is not completely squared away from the moment you receive it... they are really lucky the top looks so bad ass otherwise I prob would have told them to kick rocks and give me my money back.

 

I had the same problem. First make sure the header is centered. I used a piece of rubber between the threads on the header knob and the footman loop. This forces the header forward roughly 1/4" reducing any gap across the front header seal area. You will need to loosen every thing up to do this. The other area on mine was where the top front corners where the front doors seal. Air will enter through the small gap on each outside front corner of the header and door. I used some small pieces of weather stripping to seal this off. Add it under the flap of extra header material. It worked for me. Prior to this the noise was unacceptable. Its now as good as the OEM top.

 

x2 on the wind noise. Got weatherstripping from home depot and it works like a charm.

 

I ran foam weather stripping under the header (you need to unsnap the material from the header to access), and it seemed to help a little. The corners are where I find the loadest noise though. I guess thats where the mallet comes into play? Is Bestop going to warrent my "repair" if I smack it too hard?

Question for I2chill- can you splain the "rubber between the threads on the header knob and the footman loop" in a little more detail? I understand the concept- I had thought that would help as well, just wondering what you used that will stay put.


Thanks

 

The threaded shaft on the header knob is kept in place by the footman loop. Which may be fine depending on the header you receive. In my case I wanted the header further forward, eliminate the small corner gap. So I just put a piece of hard rubber between the footman loop and the threads which forced the header forward the thickness of the rubber. It has to be a hard rubber.
If its to soft the threads will cut into the rubber. The rubber is lodged in so it does not move. That said the real issue seemed to be the corners as others have said. I drove this morning at 70 and did not even notice any noise. It can be fixed. Frustrating we have to even do this stuff to a new product.

 

you got it dude! that's my lazy fix too...