 | |
| jarrin > My House | |
| |
Hardtop Hanger
6/7/2006 10:40 PM
 |
Heretofore I had been storing the hardtop on the ground next to my garage. It was as ugly as it was inefficient. I plan on acquiring a utility trailer for my Jeep before long and wanted that space to store the trailer. Some how it occurred to me that I could just hang the hardtop in the rear of the garage. There was plenty of space there and it would be an interesting engineering puzzle to figure out.
Unfortunately, the internet was full of people who had already had my idea. Fortunately, the internet was full of people who had already has my idea and had found that it wasn't a good one. You see: initially I had an idea that involved drilling holes in the fiberglass top of the hardtop, attaching eye hooks and then building a ratchet/pulley system into the ceiling of the garage that would hoist and suspend my hardtop all in one go.
This turns out to be a bad idea because (a) you shouldn't use a pulley/cable system to store a heavy thing and (b) suspending the hardtop from its top causes it to distort over time. The better way to do it, and the way I ended up doing it, is to seperate the hoist from the storage system.
Here is the process:
First, all fasteners that hold the hardtop to the Jeep are removed and unlatched. Then the Jeep is first backed into the garage as far as it'll go.
A tie-down strap (with one-way
 |
These three straps are all cinched up, a little at a time, until the hardtop is several inches above the highest point on the Jeep's rollbar. Then the Jeep can safely be driven out from underneath the now-temporarily-suspended hardtop.
With the Jeep out of the way the straps are continually ratcheted up until the hardtop is as high as it can go. This ends the "hoist" part of the process.
Now a ~6' length 2x4 with J-hooks in either end is held beneath the rear of the hardtop and conncected to chains, on either side, that parallel the rear straps. The friction locks on each of the rear straps are slowly released, allowing the hardtop to settle onto the supporting 2x4. The front strap remains in place and is considered part of the suspension system as well (it is not supporting an appreciable weight, it is only keeping the hardtop from tipping forward).
This arrangement provides plenty of clearance for the Jeep to parking in the garage (provided I pull in forwards rather than backwards) and also frees up considerable space around it for various other storage needs.
When winter returns I suspect remounting the hardtop onto the Jeep will be a simple matter of reversing the process. We'll see!