Re: Hard top hoist for Spider factory hard top

[Simon Favre <simon@domain.elided>]

Yes, been there, done that. I have one of those rare Pininfarina factory
steel hardtops for my '62 Giulietta Spider. Being steel, it's not light.
I did the pulley and rope thing for maybe $20-30 in materials. The hoist
is attached to the garage ceiling beams (joists) with strong screw-eyes.
Below the pulleys is a pair of 2x4's that serve as a subframe. In the
front of each 2x4 is a large, padded hook. This goes under the front of
the hardtop. In the back of each 2x4 is a smaller screw-eye with a soft
rope attached. There is a loop in the end of the rope. The rope is maybe
5' long.

To remove the hardtop, I open both doors, and undo all the fasteners.
Next, I place a furniture pad on top of the hardtop to protect it from
the 2x4 subframe. Next, I lower the hoist frame down to the hardtop
from the ceiling. I hook the padded hooks under the front of the top,
and pass the ropes from the back of the subframe, under the back edge of 
the top, up to the front of the subframe, and place the loop of rope
around the front of the 2x4. That's a little tough to visualize, I know.
Basically, the rope from the back goes under the top all the way to the
front, and hooks around the front of the 2x4. The hook in front is just
to keep the 2x4 level with the hardtop. The rope and pulley arrangement
is then used to hoist the whole assembly up to the ceiling. It takes
maybe 10 minutes to do. I have a convenient hook on the wall at about
waist level to hold the rope after raising the top to the ceiling. It's
now about time to put the top back on the car for winter. That, and a
coat of wax is about all I do to winterize the car in California. ;=)

The only thing I might want to change on this hoist is add something to
protect the weatherstrip at the rear edge from the rope.

If the beams in your garage ceiling aren't conveniently located, you will
need to build a mounting frame for the hoist that bolts to whatever you
do have. I can come up with a parts list, if you want. I think I used
a compound pulley arrangement with four 2-wheel pulleys.

Robert Abatecola wrote:

>For a few months now I've been considering making a cable and pulley 
>hoist assembly of some sort for my Spider's hard top.  It would be 
>installed on the ceiling in the garage to allow me to remove and 
>replace the hard top by myself.
>...
>Has anyone here done this before?

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