HARKEN - Hardtop Overhead Garage Storage Hoist for Jeep Wrangler and Ford Bronco, Self-Leveling, Safe Anti-Drop System, Easy One-Person Operation, Garage Organization

Overall, good product. I think it’s a little bit on the expensive side considering what you get is rope and pulley systems and eye hooks. It does not come with any of the wood pitch, which is not surprising as that would be hard to ship. It does take some time to install, but once installed that works well. The only challenge I’ve had is that the self releasing mechanism against the wall does not tend to want to release unless you have a very extreme angle against it. Unfortunately, that means I have to get up on a ladder as I have mine up against the ceiling.

I'm new to the world of Jeeps, but I knew that I needed to get my Freedom roof off to fully enjoy the summer. The roof is too heavy and awkward for my wife and I lift off, so we went in search of a hoist - and this is the one we bought.Fitting this to the ceiling of our garage took a whole lot longer than I thought it would, and I thought that the instructions could have been a little clearer - for example, they could have included measurements for common vehicles. I spent a lot of time trying to transfer the vehicle measurements to the ceiling. All in all, I was up and down ladders for about 5 hours. If you don't have 2 left hands, like me, you might be able to do it quicker.I followed the instructions on where to place the hoist points on the ceiling and I wish I'd followed my intuition instead. The hoist points are placed above the outer edges of the Freedom roof, and I wish I had instead placed them directly above where the straps are when you hoist the roof off. This means that, when you pull the roof up, you would be pulling the straps up in a straight line - instead of an ever increasing angle outwards. It feels like the last foot of so of lifting is placing a lot of strain on the pigtail hooks in the ceiling.The instructions say that this is for 10' ceiling, though I think you could easily use this kit on a 13 or 14' ceiling. I have a lot of rope left over that goes through the pulley system, possibly 15' extra feet (my wall is about 8' from the hoist mounting spot). The ropes that attach to the roof are long enough for me to lower my roof all the way to the ground with a 10' ceiling. If you never plan to lower it all the way down, and leave the roof suspended then you have extra height to play with.Once we had the hoist attached to the ceiling it was pretty easy to lift the roof on my own. There's a failsafe in the pulley system to prevent the roof falling, so it's a 1 handed operation. We did have to mess with the lengths of the straps quite a bit, to ensure they were the same length and would lift the roof on both sides at the same time. We left our roof suspended for 2 months - it's just above the high point of the windshield when suspended, though we could get it slightly higher if the hoist points were different, and we used shorter knots in the hoist ropes. Note that this is for a stock Wrangler Rubicon - no lift kit, and stock wheels and tires. Once we lift the Jeep and put 35s on it the roof will be too low to park completely under.I put the roof back on this weekend and it was easy. I was on my own - I backed the Jeep under and the just lowered the roof. The pulley system allows for a lot of control - I could stand to next the rear corner of the Jeep and lower it from there guiding the roof down with my free hand. The only challenge is that, once a corner of the roof touches down, there's not enough weight left to pull the rest down. I had to push the roof around in the harness to try to get it as level as possible, so it was pulling itself down for as long as possible. Still, it was a 1 person job and took me about 5 minutes to get the roof back on - for my first time.Great product, high quality components and makes removing and replacing the roof a breeze

Set aside five or more hours to install. But once it’s done it works quite well. One thing to note is the big eye screw supplied is apparently cheap metal as I torqued in half twisting it into the wood in my garage/barn. To be fair this barn beam isn’t ordinary as it’s 200 years old and definitely some hardwood you just don’t see anymore. But I wanted to mention it anyway. Luckily I had a super heavy duty eye hook lying around and used that. No issue with the bolt breaking on that eye hook.Lastly the knot thing is not that simple. For you boaters, it might be easy to do. I had to redo each one about three times until I was satisfied. There are four knots to tie in the hoist assembly.

Took my time and it was an easy install. Taking the top off is a one person job.

Great product! Exactly what we needed for our tent! It was harder to find the studs in the roof, than it was to install. Definitely a 2 person job to install. The first time to do anything takes longer. I’m sure we could do it alot quicker the next time. Would recommend!

I’ve installed it with the help of a friend about a year ago, I’ve used many times since and it still works great, and it doesn’t take any garage floor space.

I was in the market for a hoist, didn’t mind it being hand powered but I didn’t want to break the bank. First, buy 2-8 foot 2x6 boards and 8-10 lag bolts and washers, wish the product images on here emphasized the need for them. This hoist works great and does work for the Gladiator top but you need to go away from instructions. The gladiator top only has the middle window open so if you follow the instructions the front straps will try to move towards the middle of the top making it unstable. The fix was moving the front eye hooks about 12” towards the center from the end of the 2x6 and using a foam pool noodle to keep straps far enough wide to lift top evenly. Also keep in mind that there is a substancial amount of extra rope, both from the locking mechanism and from the eye hooks. Install everything then evenly measure. For my 9 ft roof, 32” of rope from pulley to strap was enough to lift the top to the height you see. Took some time installing by myself about 2 hours (2x6’s are heavy and going up and down ladder). Overall, if you’re not looking to drop $500 on a hoist to move a top 2 feet and don’t mind some manual labor this is the perfect hoist.