Welcome to The Beater Site
One Man Top Lift

I've taken the top off the Bronco by myself before but it's big, awkward and heavy so I decided to make a lift for easy top removal. I went to the hardware store and bought a bunch of cables, clamps hooks and a hand crank winch.

I started by welding a 1 x 2" piece of rectangular tubing between the pipes on the covered parking on the side of my house. I drilled the center hole and put the eye bolt in before I welded it in place.

I then drilled and installed four more eye bolts for the cables and two more for the winch cable. I then rand the cables, clamped them together with clips and put four more eye bolts in the 2x4s as shown.

My first attempt at harnessing the wires didn't work out so well. I had to rework it.

OK that fixed it. This is in the lowered position. All four corners come up evenly. Without the Bronco top on there I could pull it up by hand.

I had a problem with one of the cables dong a 180 bend binding and bent two eye bolts. I had to rework it a little with a couple pulleys.

Half way up and I had to do a little adjusting to get it level.

A little $20 Harbor Freight hand cranked winch makes it easy.

All the way up.

I tied it down just to be secure.