Your idea on the cage is similar to what I made for my jeep. I am curious- on the rear corners, there is typically two 45 degree bends on the standard soft top bow/uprights which do two things: (1) Gives an offset so that it can be fastened inside the tub rail (which you have alleviated) and (2) offset allows the rear and sides of the soft top to match the vertical sides and rear of the tub as a continuous line. In easier terms, look at the vehicle from the side, and the back should be completely flat from the bottom of the tub to the top of the soft top. Same with looking at it from the rear; the sides should be a continuous flat plane from the bottom of the tub to the top of the soft top. It looks like your cage does not low for continuity and so the soft top may look odd from angles (hard to see in your pics). I thought about doing it that way on my design, but I liked continuity of the soft top and sacrificed with offsetting the bows. Yours looks better without the soft top, but in my opinion, perhaps not as nice with soft top on where the top meets the tub in the rear corners. Did you eliminate the offset for this reason (asthetics)? If not, what was the reasoning? Can we see some pics with the soft top on from different angles? I am curious to see how it looks from the sides, back, and at an angle since this is a direction I considered taking, but ultimately went the other way..
!! My dad, my mom, and my 3 sisters all helped build this. I drive it every day to my high school.
(<-dads idea)
