Katherine Adams

Hello all!

I bought a '96 Tracker about 4 months ago, as an everyday driver. My husband replaced interior parts and got it all running good, but it's up to me to make it "pretty." So I have some things I want to do, but I'm wondering what order in which to do these, and then have a few questions as well. I'm new here and new to car repair, but this will be mysummer project so don't give me too hard of a time.
What I need to do:

- New soft or hard top. I'm leaning towards soft, but the one on it now is dry rotted, so maybe not
- the plastic piece around the edge that you "clip" the soft top into, I think it may be called a retainer, snapped off in several places when I took the soft top off. It was non-preventable, this thing hadn't been off in 15+ years.
- New windshield. I'm getting this done professionally, but I don't know when in the process to do it.

Lastly,
- Home paint job. I know the bare basics, that I need to sand, painter, then clear coat. But that's about all I know. I don't know what tools or paint to order.

So so should I paint first and then do repairs? Or vice versa?

Thanks in advance for the help!