Garage hard-top hoist

[breckbone]

Hey Guys. I'm planning on making a hard-top hoist to fully enjoy the summer. I have seen several threads w/different methods and think that I'm going to go w/making an H-frame. I would love to use something like uni-strut but can't find it anywhere near my house. I also, unlike a lot of the people that have made these before, don't have any extra metal rods laying around to repurpose for this type of project. Does anyone around here know of a good source of uni-strut or similar? Home Depot, etc has some L-channel metal, but that would be best suited for a welder. I just would like to bolt this thing together.

Thanks for any help!

Craig

[greytandy]

I have nothing to contribute, except I dislike you solely because you have a garage.

[colangut]

I dislike both of your because you both have relatively rust free and pre-smog Cruisers and live on the east coast.

I do have this to offer:

Occam's Razor: Often the simplest solution to a problem is the correct one.

How about just a simple frame of high quality 2x4's with a some high quality ropes. Make the 2x4's into a shape that protrudes from each side door and out of the back. Tie a rope onto an eyelet bolted through the end of the board (far from the end) and up to a pulley system. Up in the attic of your garage, run a long section of 2x12's perpendicular to the rafters to spread the load. Glue and screw the 2x4's together (use pre-drilled holes) and reinforce with metal straps at the junctions. You could pad the top of the 2x4's with foam pipe insulation. Run the 2x4's so that the narrow side faces up and the broad side faces outwards - much stronger this way.

Even easier way? Josh would get inside the truck, stand up with his back on the hard top, lift it up and walk off the truck. No joke.

[greytandy]

Hey Bob, don't you have your tops suspended under your deck?

[breckbone]

Originally Posted by greytandy

I have nothing to contribute, except I dislike you solely because you have a garage.

Still not used to it, tho...heh...need to make good use of all its space before we have it for 20 years and it turns itself into a storage room

Originally Posted by colangut

Tie a rope onto an eyelet bolted through the end of the board (far from the end) and up to a pulley system. Up in the attic of your garage, run a long section of 2x12's perpendicular to the rafters to spread the load. Glue and screw the 2x4's together (use pre-drilled holes) and reinforce with metal straps at the junctions. You could pad the top of the 2x4's with foam pipe insulation. Run the 2x4's so that the narrow side faces up and the broad side faces outwards - much stronger this way.

john, thanks for the ideas. So when you say 'far from the end', you're talking about far from the end of the 2x4? Just building this in my mind the one thing that concerns me is the rope pushing up against the rain gutters. And, is your design basically a T frame? Would it require removing the back hatch? Would this type of frame work equally well above the fiberglass shell w/hooks hooking under each side of the tops of the three doors? If I can avoid taking off all the doors, I'd love to.

Originally Posted by colangut

Even easier way? Josh would get inside the truck, stand up with his back on the hard top, lift it up and walk off the truck. No joke.

This is the method a friend of mine used to move it from the our old back yard to the front...seemed to work well, but I was slightly worried about the strength of the fiberglass supporting that much weight.

Now to go find some quality 2x4s...

[Thornton]

Craig,

I've got access to some 14ga. metal studs from a job I'm on in D.C. They may do the trick. Let me know if you might be interested.

Tom

[breckbone]

Tom, thanks for the reply. I'd love to try them out. When/where could we hook up?

Thanks,

Craig

[Thornton]

P M sent

[Mountainclimber]

Originally Posted by breckbone

Hey Guys. I'm planning on making a hard-top hoist to fully enjoy the summer. I have seen several threads w/different methods and think that I'm going to go w/making an H-frame. I would love to use something like uni-strut but can't find it anywhere near my house. I also, unlike a lot of the people that have made these before, don't have any extra metal rods laying around to repurpose for this type of project. Does anyone around here know of a good source of uni-strut or similar? Home Depot, etc has some L-channel metal, but that would be best suited for a welder. I just would like to bolt this thing together.

If you are close to any electrical supply house like Graybar, for example, you could buy strut there along with any hardware you need to bolt it together.

Pretty stout stuff. It can be used for just about anything.

Eric