posted 01-10-2003 03:29 PM                  

The approach I used is based more on one-person operation rather than storage at the ceiling. The idea is to lift, move sideways, tilt to vertical and lower into cradle.

Based this system around a 440 pound hoist from Northern Hydraulics for $79.99 (no shipping, later saw same one at Harbor Freight for $10 less).

Mounted hoist to get 8' of sideways travel using a 10' chainlink fence top rail. Hoist mounted perfectly to a 12" pipe nipple [I think it was 1-1/4"], which fit perfectly over the fence rail (check the fit at Home Depot, or whatever).

Sewed some 2" webbing into a sling and that's about it.

This does become a pretty big project and I'm still tuning it - I plan to build a storage box next to the sidewall where I store the top (will be 10-12" deep rather than 18") and work on a motordrive for the lateral movement (currently using rope and screw-eyes).

It's a fun project and not at all expensive.

-GRROWL

P.S. - If you just want to lift, pull out car, and lower into the rolling cradle, it would be a very simple project to just mount the hoist and be done with it. It's the lateral movement, tilting and lowering without moving the car, and placing the top right into the final storage location that makes this a bigger (and more fun) project.