Ursa Minor J30: Buyers Guide

We did a lot of research before we purchased our Ursa Minor and we didn’t even have a Jeep yet! The J30 was the primary reason we purchased a Jeep, rather than a 4Runner, or Tundra. When we were buying ours, we found some of the options on Ursa Minors website do not have a description, so we wanted to help answer some common questions we get and help you decide on what to order!

What is an Ursa Minor J30?

An Ursa Minor J30 is a rooftop popup camper topper made for the Jeep Wrangler JK Unlimited (4 door only). It is a complete roof replacement for your Jeep JKU and is designed to be lighter, more durable and more integrated into the Jeep than other rooftop tents.

Ursa Minor Vehicles has been producing the J30 since about 2011, and have factories in San Diego California and Portland Oregon. They have an awesome reputation, we haven’t heard anyone have an issue with the company and owners. John, one of the founders, is awesome, helpful and incredibly friendly. He answered every question we had before and after we installed our J30.

Stats & Benefits

The Ursa Minor J30 transforms your Jeep into a live-able go anywhere vehicle. The J30 is a complete bolt in replacement for the roof of your Jeep JKU.

High, low, nowhere it can’t go!

It really can go anywhere and doesn’t limit the jeeps capabilities!

The J30 is built incredibly well. Ursa Minor Vehicles has an eye for detail and it shows throughout the J30. Coming in at 265lbs, it weights just ~150lbs heavier than the stock hardtop and bolts into the stock mounting points. The Ursa Minor adds about 10 inches to the height over the stock Jeep. The J30 is constructed of a composite top with sturdy UV stable polymer sidewalls. These sidewalls are lined with a bed liner, line-x, and give the plastic a durable finish while the top is finished with a white marine gel-coat. The topper is open with 100lb gas springs and the tent canvas is made out of a water resistant fabric called Sunbrella. There are LED lights in the tent with optional USB power ports and voltmeter.

With the topper open, you just push the panels up and enter the J30 from where the passenger seats are.

The top is covered with these foam mats as a mattress. It’s comfortable… for a tent. In the future, we might add some memory foam.

It makes for a great work platform!

Setup & Takedown

The setup time for the Ursa Minor is about 2 minutes and is incredibly simple. Unlatching two stainless steel buckles and pulling on a release inside the rear of the Jeep, you release the topper. Pull up from the rear and the 100lb gas springs assist in opening the topper to its full height. The takedown process is equally as simple completed in the reverse order, the only added complexity is ensuring the canvas is tucked into the shell before shutting and latching.

For Sabrina and I, there is enough room in the topper for the both of us and some low profile gear. Once the topper is open, you enter the tent top from where the rear seats are. There is a small climb required to get up into the topper. We sleep with our heads facing the rear of the jeep, which gives us room to sit up. Theres a little room between the topper and the top of the jeep, so we keep both of our sleeping bags up there.

J30 Options

When we were building our J30 out, we wish we had more info on the options they offer and whether or not they add value for us.

The base price for the Ursa Minfor J30 for the Jeep JK, without any options is $6,400. Ursa Minor is currently working on a J30 popup camper for the Jeep JL and are taking pre-orders here.

Prices are accurate from the date of this posting but Ursa Minor occasionally updates their prices and offerings to reflect supply. You can see their offerings here!

Shell Body Color

The Ursa Minor is comprised of two main parts, the shell is the lower half which is bolted directly to the Jeep. The standard finish is a sturdy UV stable polymer which is sprayed with a truck-bed liner, line-x, for a durable textured finish. Alternatively, Ursa Minor will match the color of your jeep for $1000.

Rooftop Color

The rooftop gets lifted up from the shell and is made from a composite fiberglas like material with a white marine gel-coat finish. Ursa Minor offers a few options for the rooftop finish. We went with the standard, complete marine gel-coat finish, which looks quite nice with the white jeep!

1. Perimeter Texture – $450: Extends the line-x texture up the sides of the roof, but not on the top of the roof itself, leaving the gel-coat finish visible.
2. Full Texture – $700: Extends the black line-x finish over the entire shell.
3. Color Paint Match – $1000: Matches the entire shell to the color of your Jeep.

Rear Quarter Window Selection

Both sides of the Ursa Minor have the option to add windows to the rear quarter panels. The standard option that comes with the Ursa Minor is a solid quarter panel with the line-x finish. We opted not to get these, since we put storage where the windows would be, but Dan from ‘The Road Chose Me’ says he loves the half sliding glass windows to allow air flow through the jeep when camping. See below under modifications to see how we turned this area into external storage.

1. Tinted Quarter Glass – $250 / side:
2. Half Sliding Glass – $350 / side:

Roof Rack

The Ursa Minor can support a rooftop rack, so you can still take your gear with you! Chris from Venture4WD often carries a kayak on his Ursa Minor during summer months. Ursa Minor will install the mounts between Yakima or Thule. We installed our own system on the roof, but it took a lot of work. If you want to carry larger gear but don’t want the hassle of installing these yourself, these are worth having installed by the Ursa Minor crew. See below under ‘modifications’ to see how we installed our own.

1. Rack Mounts Yakima or Thule Podium/TK Series $150 – Just the shoes mounted to the shell. You’ll need to add the towers and bars.
2. Yakima Skyline Rack Adjustable $775  – This is a full pre-installed rack. You’ll be able to put your gear on the topper right from the factory.

Sleeper Power

There is the option to have USB and a normal 12v cigarette style outlet added to the upstairs tent sleeping area. These are incredibly useful as they allow you to charge your phone through the night and plug in a small fan during the summer months. Our recommendation is to get both.

• 12v Outlet $50
• Dual USB Ports $50

Pulling the mattress back a bit, you see a voltmeter on the passenger side, which can be switched on

Optionally, on the driver side, you get a 12v outlet and two USB chargers. These are perfect for charging your devices overnight.

Head Power

Since the Ursa Minor replaces your entire Jeep roof, it extends over the driver seat. This option is to add USB power and a 12v cigarette style outlet to the head board above the rearview mirror. These have been helpful when powering gadgets mounted to the windows, such as an extra iPhone for our hotspot, and a dash-cam. If you don’t plan on powering gadgets all over the front of your vehicle, then you can skip these.

• 12v Outlet $50
• Dual USB Ports $50

Headliner Organizer

This $150 add on, adds two organizers to the headliner above the driver and passenger seats in the jeep. We store our park passes, maps, post cards, pens, and misc receipts in the pouches and zipper. We use ours daily, but consider this an optional purchase.

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Rear Load LED Lighting

For $150, this add on adds a nice array of LED lights in the rear of the jeep, right inside of the rear window. These are bright and helpful when loading or unloading the Jeep, or providing some lighting to the interior.

Wiper & Defrosting

For $450, Ursa Minor will install a rear window wiper blade and defroster, just like the factory. Since its always dirty, we can never see out the back window anyways, so we opted not to get this and have no regrets.

Solar Charging

For $950, Ursa Minor will install a 60 watt solar panel with solar charge controller. We’ve never seen a J30 with this option so can’t comment, however, we added our own 100 watt solar panel with solar charge controller for about half the price and a lot of labor. We passed on this option since 60 watts is a small panel and not great value.

Side Awning Mounts

If you want to install an awning on the side of your jeep, these are the brackets you’ll need! Depending on the size and weight of your awning Ursa Minor recommends 2 brackets for smaller, lighter awnings, and 4 brackets to support larger awnings. Most vehicles we’ve seen have the awning mounted on the drivers side. ARB does sell these brackets separately, although the J30 has to be lifted off the vehicle to get enough clearance to install. If we could do it over again, we would have installed 4 brackets on the driver side, and expanded to the passenger side when needed.

1. Side Awning Brackets 2 for $175
2. ARB 2000, Awning Packages: $450 / side

Side awning mounts can be purchased and installed yourself, but allows attachment of any number of awnings.

The awning mounts let you affix an ARB awning and room attachment. Really handy when camping with friends!

Rear Awning Mounts

Unlike the side awning mounts, these rear mounts must be installed at the time of assembly and Ursa Minor does not sell these independently, thus, if you ever want to include an ARB 1250 to the backside of your Jeep, then you need to get the brackets installed. That being said, we love our ARB 1250, but have only found a reason to use it twice in the past year. The awning is easily attached to the brackets if you want to purchase the awning at a later time.

1. Rear Awning Brackets 2 for $175
2. ARB 1250 Package (includes rear brackets) $350

Shipping

Shipping the Ursa Minor across the country is no joke. Its huge, heavy and requires special handling. Ursa Minor actually builds a wooden shipping container just for the topper. Its not like UPS sells boxes for this kind of thing… The price on the website, $450, reflects the cost of the wood to ship the J30 in and does not include the actual price to ship. The price to ship will vary depending how far away you are from San Diego. We paid $600 to get ours shipped to North Carolina.

If you decide to drive out to San Diego to pick it up, there is a $300 fee (No GPS) $400 (with GPS) for installation plus 8.25% of the total price of the Ursa Minor for California sales tax. Its pretty much the same price to ship it to you as it is to pay California sales tax.

We’ve attached the shipping notice and installation guide guide below (these were last revised in 2017, and there might be more updated versions from Ursa Minor).

Shipment Notice – Jeep -2017

J30 Installation Guide

Install

You will need a forklift with a loading dock to get the J30 off the shipping truck. This has to be arranged before the J30 is shipped. It is no joke, its a big, 10 foot by 6 foot wooden crate. We found a semi-local 4×4 shop and paid them to unload and install it. You’ll receive detailed install instruction when the J30 ships.

Modifications

Everyones overland and living needs are a bit different. The Ursa Minor is a great base platform for these modifications. The modifications we made were used to optimize space in and around the Jeep utilizing the Ursa Minor.

Rails on Outside

Since theres two of us in the Jeep, we need as much interior space as possible. We added these rails to the outside of our jeep to add external storage. These rails provide a flexible secure way to add equipment, tie downs and attachments to the Ursa Minor body. We wrote a separate post about how we installed these rails here.

Solar

Having solar power on top of the Ursa Minor is a great way to keep our dual battery system topped off. By installing it yourself, you can control the number of panels and do it for a fraction of the price Ursa Minor would have charged. Its not an easy job by any means, but a 100w solar panel will top off your batteries!

Yakima Rails

We installed a Yakima rail system on top of the Ursa Minor. When we installed the rails, we didn’t expect to permanently carry anything on top of the Jeep, but wanted to make sure we had the ability to should the occasion call for it. We installed rails, rather than fixed anchor points, so its adjustable with the BaseLine towers and CoreBar.

100w solar panel we installed on the J30. Note… the partial shading isn’t ideal, but thats why we installed adjustable rails.

Topper Net

There is no formal storage or holding area in the top of the Ursa Minor. This is annoying at night when we want to put our glasses, phone, or wallet somewhere. We found an awesome tent net at REI and fit perfectly in the Ursa Minor!

Gas Spring Swap out (Call and ask if they can do this)

After you add any kind of weight on top of the Ursa Minor, the standard gas coils that come with the Ursa Minor wont be able to open the topper up anymore. Knowing this, Ursa Minor sells upgraded gas coils to help offset the extra weight. Ursa Minor doesn’t offer this as an option when purchasing the topper, but if you call you might be able to ask them to add it to yours for a fee, this is worth it, since its a huge pain to swap on your own.

AT Propane Mount

Adventure Trailer offers an awesome propane tank mount, thats installed on the side of any Jeep hardtop. The mount is designed to hold 5lb propane canisters. We found a Pelican 1120 fits perfectly on the bracket as well!

Final Thoughts

Ursa Minor Vehicles makes every effort to make the entire purchasing process easy. John and the entire company is professional and quick to answer any question you might have. To read a detailed review on our Ursa Minor, checkout our Ursa Minor J30 Review! If we forgot anything, or you still have questions before deciding, leave a comment below!