Let’s just say the Defender soft top is a design that could use some improvements (like all things Land Rover). I had a Badger Coachworks soft top which needed replacing so I traded that for an original Mantec snorkel. I replaced the Badger top with an Exmoor soft top. With the Badger top I had already upgraded to the UK gutter kit versus the NAS 5 snap bar. The gutter kit provides a much better seal for the door but when I say seal I mean a 95% waterproof seal which is as good as most Defenders can get :)
The Exmoor soft top can support both the UK gutter kit or the NAS 5 snap bar. I tried to go back to the NAS 5 snap bar to be more “original” but I didn’t like the seal so I converted back to the UK gutter kit. The only issue with the Exmoor soft top with the UK gutter kit is that the Exmoor did not come with straps to loop through the gutter kit and thus the front part of the soft top flapped a bit. The Exmoor does have velcro where the gutter kit is so the solution was simply to apply a large velcro strip to the gutter kit which would then lock in the soft top (works great).
The next issue I wanted to fix was a gap between the rear soft top window and the rear door. Normally that gap is very small and you use a bar that pulls the soft top to close that gap and prevent too much flapping. My gap is too large for that bar to be used. That meant that I got some flapping at highway speeds (which for a Defender is like 70 max) but it also meant when I was wheeling dust would come in from the back. I spent a long time to figure out a solution but in the end it was an easy one.
There are snaps on the rear door where the original soft top use to snap. All I had to do was have an upholstery shop get me some matching black canvas and create a panel that would use those rear door snaps and then install some snaps on the Exmoor soft top rear window so that you could snap the panel in to cover the gap. This reduces the flapping but more importantly it reduces dust coming into the cabin when offroad.
At this point there is only two things left to figure out to make the soft top “water tight”. The soft top cut outs for the external roll bar does allow a small amount of rain to come in (not much but just enough to be noticed). I think I can create a gasket of sorts to help seal that better. Lastly, I have one leak in the driverside door frame which I need to track down and seal. Both of these are minor compared to the other mods I have done but I will report back if I can get them resolved and finally make the D90 soft top a 4 season top (how novel).