I was drawing some ideas up today on how to do this...then found this write-up tonight. Thanks for the ideas and the post!!!

 

the hoist looks great man!!

 

Is that the bike rack kit from Lowes?

 

Awesome write up!

:subscribed

 

Thanks for the great write-up! This gives me a lot of good ideas for designing my own hoist.

I do have a question regarding the hooks that you make out of U bolts.

Ideally, what length of hook do you need hanging down from the bottom edge of the T frame, to hook to the underside of the top? I'm not sure if I'm going to make my frame out of the steel channel or out of reinforced wood, so the length of the U bolt would need to be longer with wood.

Also, if I do decide to use channel strut (which I'm leaning towards), which type of channel nuts do I need to get? Framing nuts, spring nuts, or the cone nuts?

 

My roof has a roof rack attached to the top of it, would that be strong enough to suspend the roof by instead of the T-bar? Or do I need to rig something up that will fit around the rack? Also could I just leave it hanging without building the shelf for it to sit on? My garage ceiling is two stories off the ground and I can't see myself positioning a shelf under the roof via ladder every time I use this set up.

 

Great write up. I want to do this but can hardly walk thru my garage. Need to have a garage sale

 

A roof rack is perfect. I now have the MPRB rack and it is great for taking off the jeep. It should be ok to leave hanging, but only if you have screws intalled in shear. And i would make sure you have plenty of safety factor in the strength design, at least 5 to 1.

 

Wow, this is an awesome setup. Nicely done

 

I just made something similar to the OP, I'll post more pictures and compete part list when it's competed and tested.