I've been thinking for days (actually years) about storing my hard top in my garage. Normally I get 3 or 4 friends to come over, lift it off, and carry it into the back yard where I sit it on a few old tires for the summer. It's always a pain trying to keep kids from climbing on it.

Yesterday I finally did something about it.

I read about 30 threads on classicbroncos.com looking at the various ways people have come up with to lift and store their top.

I'm pretty conservative, so my criteria were:

1) Cheap
2) Safe
3) Minimal modifications to the garage
4) Could do the whole thing alone
5) Could do it soon (I'm an American, I want it NOW!!)

I finally settled on a 4 point lift system using eye lags into the ceiling rafters. Just 4 holes drilled into the ceiling is pretty minimal modification, yet it spreads the load very widely across the joists. I have 12' ceilings in my garage.

Here's my parts list:

$8 - 8 eye lags (lag bolts with an loop on the end)
$5 - 2 8' 2x4s
$10 - 15' of 350lb chain
$21 - 8 carabiners (the screw type, not the spring loaded type)
$8 - 4 6' buckle straps
$14 - 4 6' ratcheting straps

The first thing you have to think about, is how you're going to lift and whether or not you have a roll cage. You can't just like a 2x4 under the top and lift with the 2x4 magically passing through the roll cage. I decided to put a 2x4 at the very back, just forward of the lift gate, and another 2x4 just forward of the glass.

I started by drilling the 4 holes in the ceiling and threading in the lags. I cut my chain into 2 4' lengths and 2 2' lengths and put a carabiner at each end of the chain and attached one chain to each eye lag.

I backed the bronco in. It wasn't perfectly centered but I didn't care. I knew it would be easy to swing the top around as needed.

In years past I've had to use a hydraulic jack to help get those 2 metal tails at the very back to release, but this time a couple of good shoves and they came loose. I lifted the top a bit, then put some cribbing blocks under the top to hold it there. I worked my way around all 4 corners adding blocks till the top was up up enough to free tails and let me carefully move the top backwards a couple inches. I had one set of blocks fall once, and after a quick underwear change I carried on.. Then I slid one 2x4 across just forward of the tails and just behind the rear roll bar. Another went across the top of the roll bar just forward of the window.

Several people had used 4x4s, but I didn't see the point since the lift points are so close to the weight they are bearing you need more shear strength than anything, and a 2x4 gives plenty of that. I just put my 2x4s vertical rather than horizontal. I drilled holes 3" out from the top and put the lags in.

Originally I had just bought buckle straps. I hooked one end of a strap to a chain, and the other to an eye lag on a 2x4. Several threads talked about just pulling on the straps to lift, but I found it incredibly hard to lift the top just by pulling down on the end of the strap. I tried lifting the top with one hand while pulling the strap with another. I was able to get the top up about 2' doing that, but it was very awkward. Eventually I pulled out 4 ratcheting straps.

I'd thought about using ratcheting straps in the first place, but you don't get 6' of throw with those things, only about 1.5' before you have to completely undo it and reset the strap. Using both buckle straps and ratchet straps I worked my way around, first I'd lift a corner with the ratchet strap, then I'd take up the slack with the buckle strap, then undo and reset the ratchet. It became very easy to left, other than having to pull my 10' ladder around and around the top. A couple times I got a bit agressive on a lift, and the top would clank or groan as something shifted. It took about an hour and a half to do the lift.

Once the top was up, I attached the chains to the 2x4s. I left the buckle straps in place beside the chains for extra safety.



I drilled holes

Nice write-up Clay! Secure and functional.

You may have ran across mine, but I don't think I took any pictures of the newest rendition.

I welded a hook to a piece of 2x2x3/16"x 48" angle iron. I tied several ceiling joists together with 4x4's above my garage. I drilled 6 holes in my angle iron and lagged those to my braces in the ceiling. Just aside from that setup (far enough to clear the top) I did another 4x4 between ceiling joists and threaded a long eye-hook into it and hooked a pulley there. I made a sliding hanger out of a long piece of 1x2x1/8" rectangle tube and a small piece of 2x6 and weleded a nut to the 2x6 and threaded a bolt thru to use as a set screw. I place my boards under the rails of the top (required if you have a full cage) and run ratchet straps from the boards to the hooks in my 1x2 and snug them down.

I took an old come-along and re-stringed it with smaller & longer cable, but used both hooks. I have permanently attached one end of the cable to the 2x6, ran it thru one hook attached to the angle iron, then over to the other pulley and finally down to the come-along , which is hooked on the wall.

Once the 2x4's are under the top, I slide my 2x6 to center the load. One day I want to replace this with an engine leveler, so I can level it much easier and on the fly. Once I lift it to clear the bronco, I tie the 2x4's together side-side to keep them from spreading and up she goes for the summer.

My goal is to replace the come along with a 120v winch (12v would work too), and replace the 1x2 assembly with one of these:

I'll need to figure out a little set up to hoist the half cab up in the garage. A little easier task.