Y2K5SRT
Enthusiast
So my good friend Ray Atkeisson invites me over to shoot some photos. I am all excited, figuring he has finally got the college cheerleader team lined up like he always talks about. No such luck. Still, what I saw there was just about as cool!
Ray is a creative guy that does his own work on just about everything. I think he is on his fourth Viper (3rd in two years) and this time he elected to go with a beautiful 2001 RT/10. His dilemma was how to handle the hardtop by himself, as well as a good way to store it. He did an awesome job of coming up with the perfect solution. I give you, the AtLift (OK, I named it myself just for fun):
Notice the hand operated winch mounted to the wall on the right. Now, rather than leave the top hanging from a cable all the time, some folks inquired how he would keep the top secure above the car. Ray built a "cage" that is mounted directly to the ceiling joists. The lower slats are removable when you are ready to lower the roof. He has used the original shipping pads from the factory to cushion it at rest on the slats, but will be making permanent pads and mount them to the slats themselves. This thing is mounted so well that you could probably hang the whole car from it.
The top itself is held up by two large padded crossbars and then attached through four j-hooks, all of which are covered with flexible tubing to avoid any scratches:
The j-hooks are attached with a simple wingnut so that they can be removed or adjusted as needed:
Once the slats are removed, it is a simple operation of lowering the top into place:
And there you go, the top is in place with one person doing it with no sweat!
Now, the one change Ray said he would make is that the bars themselves turned out to be a bit of overkill. You could easily set this up with a simple "H" pattern and skip the two outside bars in the middle. He did this just in case, but they never touch the top nor could they:
The only other note here is that Ray mounted the whole assembly pretty high up on the ceiling. The reason he did this was that he also has an incredible off-road Jeep that sits up pretty high. He wanted to have room in case he put the Jeep in that spot. You could very easily have the whole assembly mounted much lower. Likewise, he routed his cable inside the ceiling itself, but you could do it more simply by mounting your pulley assembly in sight.
Hope this helps those that are considering doing something like this. I have a GTS, so unless I get handy with a chain saw...
Chris
Ray is a creative guy that does his own work on just about everything. I think he is on his fourth Viper (3rd in two years) and this time he elected to go with a beautiful 2001 RT/10. His dilemma was how to handle the hardtop by himself, as well as a good way to store it. He did an awesome job of coming up with the perfect solution. I give you, the AtLift (OK, I named it myself just for fun):
You must be registered for see images
Notice the hand operated winch mounted to the wall on the right. Now, rather than leave the top hanging from a cable all the time, some folks inquired how he would keep the top secure above the car. Ray built a "cage" that is mounted directly to the ceiling joists. The lower slats are removable when you are ready to lower the roof. He has used the original shipping pads from the factory to cushion it at rest on the slats, but will be making permanent pads and mount them to the slats themselves. This thing is mounted so well that you could probably hang the whole car from it.
You must be registered for see images
The top itself is held up by two large padded crossbars and then attached through four j-hooks, all of which are covered with flexible tubing to avoid any scratches:
You must be registered for see images
The j-hooks are attached with a simple wingnut so that they can be removed or adjusted as needed:
You must be registered for see images
Once the slats are removed, it is a simple operation of lowering the top into place:
You must be registered for see images
And there you go, the top is in place with one person doing it with no sweat!
You must be registered for see images
Now, the one change Ray said he would make is that the bars themselves turned out to be a bit of overkill. You could easily set this up with a simple "H" pattern and skip the two outside bars in the middle. He did this just in case, but they never touch the top nor could they:
You must be registered for see images
The only other note here is that Ray mounted the whole assembly pretty high up on the ceiling. The reason he did this was that he also has an incredible off-road Jeep that sits up pretty high. He wanted to have room in case he put the Jeep in that spot. You could very easily have the whole assembly mounted much lower. Likewise, he routed his cable inside the ceiling itself, but you could do it more simply by mounting your pulley assembly in sight.
Hope this helps those that are considering doing something like this. I have a GTS, so unless I get handy with a chain saw...
Chris
