My door and top storage DIY solutions.... cart and hoist.

[tfranks]

Here are some pics. Instead of hoisting up - I went to Lowe's and purchased some chain to hang direct down from above. I put a pully toward the rear of the garage. You could actually do the same thing with just a chain mounted to the ceiling and the hoist to the rear but I wanted to keep the hoist on ceiling of garage in case of need for future use. But you can see from the picture where I pulled half way up the J-bar moves toward the rear as the chain just pivots as I pull with hoist. Therefore it pulls back as much as it pulls up (giving me about 4-5 feet clearance of the garage door opener which you can see is directly beside the hoist.

Brilliant! is that the 440lb harbor freight hoist you used? and do you just raise the J-Bar up pretty far to keep it out of the way when not in use?
Thanks for the photos my garage is a bit different set-up but I'll probably copy your idea with the chain and angled lifting mechanism.

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[cbl1]

It is the harbor freight and I can pull up almost to the pulley. Eventually the chain goes against the brake and shuts off hoist so doesn’t go to far.

 

[Warman]

DaleG, thank you very much for the detailed instructions and measurements. I used your design with a couple of mods for my application and had it working last week. I ended up using the HF 440lb hoist mentioned above and mounted it an a trolley using a section of Unistrut. This allows me to pull off the top and slide it back about 3 feet further into my garage. Again, thanks for the "heavy lifting" on this project.

Cool idea! Can you elaborate more about the trolley and unistrut? That would work fantastically in my garage.

 

[FLUndertaker]

Do the straps wrap all the way around the hard top in a big loop? When the top is on how do you initially get the straps under it to begin the lift?
Do you think a G shaped arm could be fabricated that you could insert thru the open rear window that could spread open once inserted and be used to lift it off from a single point connected to a electric hoist?

 

[txGlad]

Cool idea! Can you elaborate more about the trolley and unistrut? That would work fantastically in my garage.

I used the following trolley from Amazon that is made to fit the Unistrut...

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07S38FMND/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Then used 2 sections of angle iron to mount the hoist to the trolley. Got this idea from HF hoist reviews.
I was worried about the trolley hitting the lag bolts used to anchor the Unistrut to the ceiling so I purchased the deep Unistrut from McMaster-Carr... Wish I would have gotten it even longer to have more range of motion it worked so well. Also beware that McMaster's shipping is pretty expensive ($24) and they don't let you know how much it is before paying. If I did it again I'd probably use the standard Unistrut and lower profile fasteners.

 

[FLUndertaker]

How high does the top have to come up to actually be removed? If its just a couple inches and you can drive the jeep out from under it, it should be fine, right? I get that way up and out of the way is preferrable but for those of us with 8-9' garage ceiling heights and limited space, if I an justget it elevated and perhaps slid back, via a trolley on unistrut as shown above, it should be fine. At least thats my way of thinking. Amiright?

 

[FLUndertaker]

@txGlad

whats the minimum necessary clearance to use a system like yours between the top of the jeep and the ceiling. I am wondering if between the unistrut, trolley, hoist, necessary cable, hook, 2x4, etc I will have enough room to fit it all in and still have enought to raise the top up and off to slide it back. thanks!

 

[DaleG]

How high does the top have to come up to actually be removed? If its just a couple inches and you can drive the jeep out from under it, it should be fine, right? I get that way up and out of the way is preferrable but for those of us with 8-9' garage ceiling heights and limited space, if I an justget it elevated and perhaps slid back, via a trolley on unistrut as shown above, it should be fine. At least thats my way of thinking. Amiright?

The top really only needs to raise 3-4 inches to clear driving out from under it. Mine only raises about 8-10 inches, and I can turn the truck around and park right under the roof with it sitting right over the hood and windshield Frame.

 

[DaleG]

Do the straps wrap all the way around the hard top in a big loop? When the top is on how do you initially get the straps under it to begin the lift?
Do you think a G shaped arm could be fabricated that you could insert thru the open rear window that could spread open once inserted and be used to lift it off from a single point connected to a electric hoist?

Look at my pics posted. The front straps go to the front bolt holes and the rears slide under the rear of tge roof and attach to the rear roof bolt holes.

I prefer lifting from multiple lifting points....much better balance and load spred.

 

[FLUndertaker]

Look at my pics posted. The front straps go to the front bolt holes and the rears slide under the rear of tge roof and attach to the rear roof bolt holes.

I prefer lifting from multiple lifting points....much better balance and load spred.

Understood but you must have to lift/ pry the top up with your fingers first to get the strap under it initially. Or am I missing something here? I see how you can attach the straps and pins to the front portion over the drivers head but the ones on the lower rear is what I am asking about.

 

[DaleG]

grab the drip rail and lift the top one inch and slide the straps under each side.....very easy to do, and I set the rear lift pins at the same time on each side.

 

[FLUndertaker]

I used the following trolley from Amazon that is made to fit the Unistrut...

Also beware that McMaster's shipping is pretty expensive ($24) and they don't let you know how much it is before paying. If I did it again I'd probably use the standard Unistrut and lower profile fasteners.

I ordered a 10' length of unistrut from McMaster Carr and HOLY $HIT, $76 shipping for $65 part. Of course I didnt find out until its too late. They need to fix their website to calc shipping before you check out. I would have ordered 2 5' sections and probably save $20-30 in shiping.

 

[FLUndertaker]

I used the following trolley from Amazon that is made to fit the Unistrut...

https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07S38FMND/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Then used 2 sections of angle iron to mount the hoist to the trolley. Got this idea from HF hoist reviews.
I was worried about the trolley hitting the lag bolts used to anchor the Unistrut to the ceiling so I purchased the deep Unistrut from McMaster-Carr... Wish I would have gotten it even longer to have more range of motion it worked so well. Also beware that McMaster's shipping is pretty expensive ($24) and they don't let you know how much it is before paying. If I did it again I'd probably use the standard Unistrut and lower profile fasteners.

@txGlad have you got a pic of the angle iron bolted to the trolley and the hoist. I am curious of you just used 10" or so of angle to blt to the 2 hles in the hoist. How many bolts did you use in the trolley. It has 3 holes. I am curios how you got the balance right with the trolley, to hoist, to top.

 

[txGlad]

@txGlad have you got a pic of the angle iron bolted to the trolley and the hoist. I am curious of you just used 10" or so of angle to blt to the 2 hles in the hoist. How many bolts did you use in the trolley. It has 3 holes. I am curios how you got the balance right with the trolley, to hoist, to top.

While it works well like I have it now, if I were to do it again I would either get two of these 4-wheel trolleys or 2 of the 2-wheel trolleys and space them out more to better balance the load.

The balance part was a little trial and error. I first set it up so that the hoist was balanced with no load. However, this didn't allow it to slide with the weight of the top. I then redrilled the holes and positioned it so that it is balanced when loaded. You can see in this picture with no load that the hoist tips back, but it will still move in the channel fine. With the top lifted it moves even better.

I used 2" angle iron that is 9" long. 2.5" would be better as I had to use a couple of washers to take up the space left between the angle iron and trolley on each side, but that's all they had at Home Depot. I used the 2 bolts on each side that were supplied with the hoist to mount the angle iron.

 

[Cajundoc]

Why are y’all using such big winches? I bought a 110 lb winch today to construct a hoist like this but I feel like I need to return it for something more powerful after reading this thread.
Also what are the pros and cons of ceiling mounting the winch vs wall mount with pulleys?

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