I bought the D90 sight unseen which in the best of cases is risky, but when buying an old NAS is down right crazy. It all worked out in the end but I would not recommend this to anyone if you can help it. I had lots of pictures and I did a FaceTime call with the dealer down in LA so he could walk me through the car live. Even with all that there were a couple of surprises when the car showed up. The first surprise was that the rear hoop of the roll cage was not a NAS padded bar. Honestly, I should have noticed that from the photos and FaceTime so that one is on me. The rest of the cage is an original NAS but that one hoop is not the stock NAS bar. I reached out to the OEM manufacture (Safety Devices) and they don’t believe it was made by them however I am not convinced because it has the correct dimensions, fit, and finish…..basically it is too perfect of a match if you ask me. If this was made by someone other than Safety Devices I have to say they did a perfect job. The only real issue is that it does not have the NAS padding. The second surprise is that while the car ran it did not run very well. It was a classic example of prior owners not doing proactive service and a dealer doing just enough to sell the car. I have since done a lot of work to resolve this and now the car runs great (for a Defender). The last surprise was the soft top.
Badger soft top
The soft top that came with the truck is made by Badger Coachworks and is considered by many as superior to the standard replacement made by Exmoor. Mine was Badger’s gutter kit version II which is their nicest model. It uses the UK gutter kit versus the 5 stub bar to get a tighter seal around the front doors. The Badger was in decent shape (perhaps a 7 out of 10) but it did not fit all that well. There was a gap around the exterior roll cage, a gap around the driver door, and a gap above the rear tailgate. So while it was functional and looked good it was not overly water tight.
Door alignment issues
I tried hard to resolve these issues but the top must have shrunk over the years making small gaps larger over time. I almost bought a hard top to replace the soft top but determined my front door alignment issues (more on that in a bit) would prevent a good fit with a hard top. I then thought I would simply order a new Badger but that company is run by a guy back east who seems to be extremely backed up all the time and would never return my emails or calls. So I decided to get a brand new Exmoor and take it back to the original top configuration. That meant I would also get a 5 stub bar and remove my gutter kit (at least that is what I thought).
The quality of the Exmoor’s soft top is great and I can’t say the Badger uses better materials. I like the side windows of the Exmoor better and I like that the Exmoor can use the 5 stub bar or the gutter kit. I first installed the Exmoor using the 5 stub bar but I found the fit around the doors a bit weak. Also, there is very little adjustment you can do to get a tighter fit with the 5 stub bar. I then switched back to the gutter kit but took them apart and replaced all the hardware. This allowed me to use spacers and washers to make small adjustments in the frame which resulted in a much tighter fit around the front doors.
I have the normal Defender door alignment issue where that side panels don’t perfectly match up to the doors. This is normal and doesn’t impact how the door functions. After a lot of research I found that the solution requires adjusting the bulkhead which is a big project so I am going to live with it until the day comes that I pull the motor to rebuild it. The larger issue I have is that the driver door (the top half actually) sits too far away from the gutter kit. I am not sure if this is because the top half of the door is warped or my body panels are off. But with the spacers and washers added to the gutter kit I was able to pull the gutter kit out to meet up with the door and I have an excellent fit now. The Exmoor fits nearly perfect around the external roll cage bars whereas the Badger had gaps.
Exmoor tight fit
The only remaining issue is the gap above the tailgate. That I can not resolve this with the Exmoor or Badger soft top. For some reason my soft top rear retaining bar is about 3/4 - 1 inch higher than the mounting points. At first I thought it was because my rear hoop is not an original NAS, but I measured a friend’s NAS and it is the same height. Also the soft top fits the side and rear channels perfectly so the gap is just with the rear retaining bar. It doesn’t create a visible gap but it means the retainer bar in the rear can not mount properly. The solution is to create a block or riser for the retaining bar mounting points to bring the mounts up 3/4 - 1 inch. I have not done this yet as the retaining bar is not critical and often gets in the way if you ask me.
Overall my Exmoor fits significantly better than the Badger and I like the original design and features more than the Badger. I will keep the Badger and put it in my spare parts bin in case I ever need a backup soft top. With this new soft top I will give up on the hard top idea because I just don’t think I can get it to fit with my front doors without significant adjustments…..plus the soft top NAS tends to have a higher resell value than the hard top NAS. Let’s be honest, living in CA there is only one way to go and that is with a soft top.