Hardtop - suspending from garage roof???

I want to be able to easily mount and dismount the hardtop without my wife's (extremely limited) help. So I thought of rigging pulleys to the roof of the garage and pulling it up. I could store it suspended there as well.

I have got the pulleys, rope and some webbing to hold the top in but all attempts to date have been a failure. I can't get the suspension points above the centre of gravity and the webbing slips all over the place threatening to allow the top to fall out.

Has anyone successfully managed this? If so can you post a rough sketch of how you got it all to work.

TIA

David

I used to hang my hard top (before I sold it) using the front clips with a rope between them which was then clipped in to by the pulley rope. It worked with a 4 to one pulley but it did hand vertically which may not give you sufficient space under neath.

Richard

You are right - I don't have enough height to have it hanging vertically.

I want it to lift straight up - more or less as it sits on the car and then I can just lower it back into place when needed.

Did intend trying a lift system for my roof..but now I just place a tapaulin over the boot..carry the hardtop to the back of the car and lift it over..bit at a time...no damage but one man action...I bought a small mains winch but it is now surplus to requirements.

As regards suspending one here is a picture of a simular roof to that of a mgf/mgtf hardtop roof after lift off.

The setups that seem to work best usually use a 4-point lift rather than relying on a couple of straps near the center. Run straps under the hardtop at all four corners and bring them up to a rectangular spreader bar (or even a sturdy wooden frame) before connecting to the pulley. That keeps the load balanced and prevents the webbing from sliding toward the center when you start lifting.

A similar principle is used when lifting awkward roof sections and other bulky materials. A contractor from Covenant Roofing & Restoration once explained a balanced lifting method that avoided shifting loads; anyone curious can learn more at:google .com/maps/place/?cid=6428818909414650258, although the key takeaway is keeping the lifting points wider than the center of gravity.

If your garage ceiling height is limited, I'd also add a couple of guide ropes on opposite sides. They help keep the hardtop level as it comes up and stop it from twisting or tilting unexpectedly. With four attachment points and guide lines, the top should lift almost straight up and be much easier to lower back onto the vehicle without needing a second person.

The hardtop is a bloody awkward  shaped load to rig up safely, and you'll need a lod of headroom to hoist it properly,  you could as mentioned rig up some sort of spreader bar to assist in reducing the head room required,  but it probably a bloody side easier to manually lift it with the help of a glamorous assistant.
The problem is that there are no secure lifting points on the hardtop.
Of course once off, you need to find somewhere out of the way to put the bastard of a thing!
 

It's a bot Cobber..he has been before..reccomending the same company..if I am wrong I will apologise..😉

Bot or not my reply is still valid, A lot of what I did in my work before I retired, was figuring out how to safely lift and handle heavy and or awkward objects, often involving cranes of 100's of tons lifting capacity, so a piddly little hardtop that weighs bugger all may not seem much of a challenge at face value.......but when you look at the job and the point of balance being awkwardly biased well aft of centre, it does pose a challenge.

You don't want it to roll out of it's lifting rig and you want it to lift evenly so as you can lift it on and off the car with out too much drama.

So my thinking goes something live this: a  H pattern frame is fabricated out of SHS (square hollow section) steel tubing, alone the top of the centre bar of the H frame there is a length of flat bar welded on edge, facing upwards  this has various holes drilled along its length, these provide various lifting points for trial and error, to find the balance point, (which will be well aft of centre) so you can use a shackle from a single lifting point, to do the lifting with the whole lot balanced.

At 4 points at the edge of the cross bars are welded lugs pointing downwards, these are to secure shackles to, these attach to soft slings around the roof section of the hardtop, now the is also another lug welded to the centre bar at the rear of the hard top this is to attach and adjustable keeper strap that hooks to the rear edge of the hardtop, this is to prevent the hardtop from rolling out of the slings supporting the hard top in a basket fashion.
For the keeper strap you could use a ratchet tie down strap.

Now it must be pointed out that I'm figuring this out in my head without the benefit of the thing sitting in front of me, so the whole proposal may well be wrong!
The trouble is that I don't know where the balance bias is, It may well be the front part of the rig is not needed at all and so instead of the 'H' frame a 'T' frame would be better with the cross bar of the 'T' to the front.

But I think a rig along these lines would allow you to lift from a single point and store it securely with a minimum of head room required

 

My wife must love the strange green thing.  Whist musing where to put the hardtop she suggested "hanging on the wall in the conservatory.  It will be safe and out of the way there."
I didn't think to suggest that as I would give money against getting away with it!  Amazing -  just shows.

Id knock my head on it if i suspended the hardtop in my flat roof garage. For lack of anywhere else its been stuck on the TF since last winter as my garage and workshop space is full of project car bits.

VinceR wrote:

My wife must love the strange green thing.  Whist musing where to put the hardtop she suggested "hanging of the wall in the conservatory.  It will be safe and out of the way there."
I didn't think to suggest that as I would give money against getting away with it!  Amazing -  just shows.
 

I did grab that offer with both bloody hands........don't let her have time to change her mind!

Done!
 

She will probably put flowers around it and change it into a display of some sort.