Lange Hard Top Hoist "Hoist-a-Top"

[Snarf77]

I picked up a Powered Lange Hard Top Hoist on Craigslist for a great price. I have a tall garage ceiling so I thought I'd like to have a way to safely take the hard top off myself. The Lange system is pretty cool but I'm customizing it for my house doing a wall mount and a pulley system off of the joists in the ceiling.

So I found the studs and mounted the winch to the wall. Sorry for the crappy picture.



Then I cut some square tube and mounted it to my joists using 5" lag bolts in the center of the joists, 16" on center. I was glad the holes in the square tube matched up.

This is just a test to see where the hook would drop, and to look at the angles. The pulley is actually bolted loosely to the outside of the square tube temporarily. In the final install, you have a pulley and an anchor relatively close together to make less work for the winch.



Maybe a better view from the side:



Then I unbolted the pully, drilled out a hole in the bottom of the square tube inserting the pully mount inside the square tube where I bolted it in place. Then I added an eye bolt to the opposite side and a pulley in the middle to come down and grab the crossbar that will pick up the top.



Finally, I added 200 pounds of dead weight to the hook and ran the lift up and down a few times to test the wall mounts and the joist mount. Mine didn't even creak!