The latest project

I don't really like doing home improvement projects. I think that it's because I'm worried that I'll mess it up. But sometimes you've just got to do it.

Summer is coming to an end here in AZ, and it's going to start cooling off (yes it cools off here!). I'd like to be able to remove the hard-top from my jeep so I can enjoy the wonderful winter with the breeze running her fingers through my hair. The photo shows the desired result. To accomplish this, I ordered a winch/hoist system so I can get the hard-top off whenever I want.

The project started, as they usually do, with me thinking it will be easy.


The first step was to move all of the shelving and storage from one side of the garage to the other. Why can't they just have basements in AZ? Anyway, that took three hours last Saturday.

The rest of the project (in my mind) was supposed to go as follows: drill 4 or 5 holes and plug in the winch- done! Wrong. First I had to assemble the frame that holds the hardtop. It wasn't too hard, but it took some time, mostly because the instructions they mailed me were wrong.

Then I had to attach the anchor eye-bolts to the ceiling. Hoping that there was a nice strong 2x6 right in the spot where I wanted to screw it in, I peeked up into my attic space. No dice. Where I wanted to attach was between two joists, and of course the joists were the wrong direction. The instructions warned that if you pull on the lag bolt sideways (transverse to the direction of the joist) it could rip out through the side of the 2x4. Is that true? I dunno, but it sounds bad. I also didn't have a lot of room to change the lift location, my garage is pretty tight. It would have probably been OK to attach the hoist the way it was, but I figured better safe than sorry.

So I decided to put a cross member between the joints in the right location and attach to that. I bought a 2x4 and some joist hangars to attach between the joists. There was an access panel for the attic space in the garage, and I thought I could just crawl up in there and work. Then I tried it- no go, too small. So I had to cut a new access panel over in the work area. That ended up being really hard and messy. When I pulled out the piece of drywall, I discovered that it was two sheets thick, no wonder it was so hard to cut. I climbed up in there and nailed in the hangars and cross-member. If this seems wrong to any of you experienced builder-types, please let me know! Then I climbed down and drilled the holes for the lag-bolts, and screwed them in.

The next task was to attach the winch to the wall. It was simple, but the instructions were funny- they told me to 'get a strong friend to hold the winch while tightening the bolts.' Well- I don't need a strong friend! I only almost dropped the winch once!


After that it was pretty easy. I just had to attach the pulleys and run the cable through. Then I hooked the frame to the pulley.

The last steps were to back in the jeep, remove the bolts that hold the top to the jeep, attach the frame to the top, and hoist away! It works great! Here is the final result.