Thought I would share a solution we came up with for loading up our Maggiolina.
The initial problem we were trying to solve was how the wife and I could heft this by ourselves. The Jeep and rack are at the max of my other half's reach, so lifting it up overhead wasn't working out so well. We looked at a few other solutions (e.g. neighbors, friends, hoists, step up for her, etc). Also, it wasn't an option to leave it mounted all the time for a few reasons, but mostly because of garage height limitations.
After a different experiments, and a lot of overthinking what turned out to be a pretty simple solution, here is what we came up with. It's basically a ramp made of 2x4's that we carpeted. We added the resting blocks to hold it there so that I can get in a position to slide it right up the ramp and onto the rack. You can see in one of the pictures, there is a moving pad under the Maggiolina. That was an earlier idea that worked ok, but the addition of the carpeted slides on the rack top made it a much smoother operation. The main ramp portion has a simple V notch cut into the end of the 2x4. There is also a slot cut towards the end near the notch wide enough for a cam lock strap to feed through that keeps the ramp secured to the rack so it doesn't move up, down, or laterally. Final touch was to add stops to the underside of the slider panels that sit between the slots in the AEV rack to keep those in place as the tent loads and unloads.
Anyway, hope this helps someone if they are in a similar situation.
How we store it now in the garage...
Tent moved to ramp, ready to slide up.
Another shot showing carpeted landing strips after tent passes the balance point and can be leveled with AEV rack.
Tent resting safely up top (note moving pad vs. carpeted landing pads that would be thought of later).
Life is good already, but just got a bit better!
Brian
The initial problem we were trying to solve was how the wife and I could heft this by ourselves. The Jeep and rack are at the max of my other half's reach, so lifting it up overhead wasn't working out so well. We looked at a few other solutions (e.g. neighbors, friends, hoists, step up for her, etc). Also, it wasn't an option to leave it mounted all the time for a few reasons, but mostly because of garage height limitations.
After a different experiments, and a lot of overthinking what turned out to be a pretty simple solution, here is what we came up with. It's basically a ramp made of 2x4's that we carpeted. We added the resting blocks to hold it there so that I can get in a position to slide it right up the ramp and onto the rack. You can see in one of the pictures, there is a moving pad under the Maggiolina. That was an earlier idea that worked ok, but the addition of the carpeted slides on the rack top made it a much smoother operation. The main ramp portion has a simple V notch cut into the end of the 2x4. There is also a slot cut towards the end near the notch wide enough for a cam lock strap to feed through that keeps the ramp secured to the rack so it doesn't move up, down, or laterally. Final touch was to add stops to the underside of the slider panels that sit between the slots in the AEV rack to keep those in place as the tent loads and unloads.
Anyway, hope this helps someone if they are in a similar situation.
How we store it now in the garage...
Tent moved to ramp, ready to slide up.
Another shot showing carpeted landing strips after tent passes the balance point and can be leveled with AEV rack.
Tent resting safely up top (note moving pad vs. carpeted landing pads that would be thought of later).
Life is good already, but just got a bit better!
Brian