A quick repsonse. First 2k sounds aweful high. Second, this is something most anyone can do IF you have a TON of patience. Material costs are minimal, one piece stitched vinyl top $70, can of contact cement $10.

As mentioned above I did do my own top with the help of my wife. I beleive I have a few pics on my photobucket site. First your window channels should be cleaned out and repaired. I also did this on my own. What I did was removed the front and rear window, wire wheeled the channels to bare metal. Filled all the holes/pin holes with bondo and sanded them smooth. Primed them with a high quality rattle can primer. Then brushed on a few heavy coats of POR15.

While I had the front window out I replaced the metal dash section. Again, cheap part and some time and yet another project completed. Next, and this is key. The front and rear glass on our cars are NOT to be caulked in place or siliconed in place. I repeat, when properly installed front and rear glass on our cars DO NOT require ANY caulk and or silicone.

The front and rear glass are sealed and held in place by a 3M product that comes in a roll. It is SUPER SUPER sticky rubber type bead of sealer. It is rectangular and gets laid in the channel on it's wider side. Then it comes with little rubber stops in the box, these get placed at the bottom two corners and the glass rests on them as you place the glass in place. That is ALL that seals the glass in place. If done this way, you will NOT need silicone or caulk etc. Mine have been for 8 years and have NEVER once leaked air and or water.

Now, there are installers out there and many shops that will now use a butyle sealer in a huge caulk gun type thing to install glass into our old cars, this may work for them, but the 3M stuff is MUCH easier for the DIY person as you can not get too much or too little etc.

Ok, on to the top now that the front and rear glass are replaced in sealed in properly. Now, if I had an unlimited budget would I do the top myself? NOPE! Would I take it to the best shop in town? YES. However, for me, I received a quote 8 years ago from a very good shop for $700 to supply and install a new top. In my simple mind I thought, hmm, a one pices stitched vinyl top is $55 (back then) and $10 for a can of contact cement. So, in my mind I figured if I screw up I loose $65 but if it works I save $635 which meant I could then spend that on yet another project!

Well, with $65 in materials and one ENTIRE day (7am to midnight) with the help of my wife, we did in fact install our own top. Never before had we done anything like this. I beleive I offered up step by step instructions once before on this topic with some very percise detail. I will look for it and post tomorrow.

All in all IMO it comes down to budget. If you have more money than time, have someone else do it. If you have more time than money, try it yourself. I have always found the later to be more appropriate for me, therefore we have done almost EVERYTHING on our car ourselves. Is it perfect, nope, does it look good, I think so and I am quite picky I must say so myself. So if it looked like crap, it would have been torn off at 12:15am the night it was completed. LOL It has now been on the car for 8 years and will this fall be redone again due to a repaint...