ok i bought my first hardtop jk unlimited, now i want to buy a hoist a top seeing its supposed to be a easy 1 person operation plus i have a colormatched hardtop so i want to be severely careful not to scratch or ding it up since it cost a pretty penny from jeep, lol, now my question is what lift works best and is it easy operation raising and lowering without beating up paint on hardtop and jeep itself??? i was thinking a harken lift, they run about 139 bucks but not bad if a easy task removing top and putting back on!!! please gimme any tips or info..thanx jeepers!

 

Have the harken hoister and it works great! Makes taking the top off by myself a breeze.

There are lots is do-it-yourself options out there too

 

I have a Lang and don't recommend it at all. The best I can say about the Lang "Hoist a Top", is that it works.

Other than that, it is very cheaply made for being one of the more expensive options for a one person hoist. I have to bend the hooks out on it because they seemed to have made it a bit too narrow to properly fit the width of the hard top. I had to assemble it together by drilling additional holes and using a rivet gun to make it secure, because the screws and metal that is provided by Lang are very cheap and strip out rather easily for something I have to rely on to hold up my expensive hard top. It's your pinnacle description of "cheap Chinese shit".

In summary....the Lang "Hoist a Top" works...but sucks overall. If I had time to make my own hoist, I could have done a much better job...but since I don't have that kind of time or patience...the Lang will do but overall I'm very disappointed with the quality of it, considering the price I paid for it.

 

go with harken. I tried to make my own. After many weeks and many dollars...i should have just bought the damn harken hoist.

 

I decided to go with the cart instead of the lift. I couldn't rest easy knowing it would be hanging over the hood of my Jeep.