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OK. My thought was to go a step further and make the “gantry crane” or “wood box frame” into a carport. The structure could be used to lift and support the camper shell and also somewhat protect the shell and the truck from the elements.
HTH,
Jim / crewzer
Yeah that’s what I said for him to build also. All he needs is a cube frame to go over the bed section. Drives in. Has a few 2x4 to slide under abd a hand crank pulley system. pretty sure he’s limited in space. A gantry can also be relatively easy to build and take down. I have a forklift and I rarely remove my shell off my truck.
I remove the hardtop from my jeep every summer, and put it back on in Nov. A jeep hardtop probably weighs about the same. They mike a lift setup, company name is Lange I think, with 3 J hooks on a metal T. I reinforced the garage rafters and installed the pulley at the ceiling. The kit came with a comealong, but I soon replaced that with a basic electric winch from Harbor Freight. I leave the hardtop suspended up at the garage ceiling all summer. Takes me longer to install the soft top, than to remove the hardtop.
I think this Lange system would work for a camper shell, if there is a carport or garage to hang it.
I remove the hardtop from my jeep every summer, and put it back on in Nov. A jeep hardtop probably weighs about the same. They mike a lift setup, company name is Lange I think, with 3 J hooks on a metal T. I reinforced the garage rafters and installed the pulley at the ceiling. The kit came with a comealong, but I soon replaced that with a basic electric winch from Harbor Freight. I leave the hardtop suspended up at the garage ceiling all summer. Takes me longer to install the soft top, than to remove the hardtop.
I think this Lange system would work for a camper shell, if there is a carport or garage to hang it.
I don’t think OP has a garage.
Another option is a engine chevy picker . Make yourself a X frame that fits in the cherry picker arm like a hitch receiver and it picks up the shell. Make the x frame to have a inverted pyramid shape to take up the space so the cherry picker doesn’t have to be pumped up high. Sort of like a giant 4 fingered hand palm and fingers facing up with the fingers pointing upwards making a cup shape. He can slide the thing in the shell from the back and pushes up and lifts the shell up from the 8nside ofvthe roof area. It doesn’t have to go up much. Just enough to lift the shell off 6/8 inches. And make it narrow enough where it fits through the window opening.
they make a similar steel frame to pick up truck beds that hooks under the bed rails using a cherry picker.
this can be made to fold diwn with the cherry picker and put in a corner
We used to use this type on slide in campers. Ours had a much wider lifting base. Used them to change a frame on a car once. Think you can still buy or rent them.
I got the stuff for the build, and assembled the front and back frames in the driveway in front the house. I used Simpson Strong-tie brackets instead of the Elevators. I moved everything to the space I had for the rack, and used the tailgate with a spare stud to support the back frame while I installed the bottom side-braces to the front. Then went around and leveled it all the best I could on blocks, cause my topography goes downhill from my front property-line.
