Crooked garage door
 

OK, I have an extension spring garage door I've been doing battle with
for months now. A couple of months ago, I replaced the springs (one
broke) and also replaced a bunch of the worn hinges and rollers.

I also tried to straighten the tracks a bit, because the button on the
bottom bracket (that attaches to the pull cable) had always been
scraping against the tracks and causing issues. First, I set the
tracks at 1/2" away from the door on both sides. The scraping was
much worse that way, and sometimes it would cause the door to jam. It
seemed to get worse over the course of a few weeks, even after I
readjusted the spring tension a few times.

I then pulled the tracks as far apart as possible, to keep the thing
from scraping. Now my problem is that the door always becomes crooked
when being lowered. By the time it gets near the bottom, it jams and
resets. I've toyed with the tension quite a bit, and this doesn't
seem to do anything. I think the problem is more with the tracks, but
I can't figure out quite what is going on.

Any thoughts on what I need to do to stop this? Also, for the track,
should it tilt either towards or away from the garage as it goes
down? In my case, the bottom of the vertical track is maybe an inch
closer to the inside of the garage than the top. I've seen this is
typical based on the couple of other doors I checked, but I'm not
sure. I did try straightening it at one point, but it made the button
sticking worse (tho unpredictable).

Any help is appreciated. I'm sick of this, and its starting to get
cold outside!

Crooked garage door
 

Is it alway "cocking" to the same side?

SD

Crooked garage door
 

On Oct 25, 12:49 pm, "S H O P D O G"
wrote:
Is it alway "cocking" to the same side?

SD

Yup. And when I tried adjusting the tension on that side to counter
it, it did not seem to help.

Crooked garage door
 

OF course since I'm not there this is all shooting in the dark but, how bout
the rollers on that side. Are they all rolling easily? ANy of them hanging
up?
What about equal and opposite reaction, maybe the other sides tension is off
a bit?

I have old wooden doors right now (getting ready to changover to new
ones shortly) when the right door cocks I just give it a "jerk" to the side
and it levels out.

What about where the turn is? are the turns level with each other? I
think thats where my problems lies, the tracks are a bit loose and when the
one side moves is when it "cocks"?

I hope I'm helping, if I could see it I may be a better help

RIch

Crooked garage door
 

On Oct 25, 5:11 pm, "S H O P D O G"
wrote:
OF course since I'm not there this is all shooting in the dark but, how bout
the rollers on that side. Are they all rolling easily? ANy of them hanging
up?
What about equal and opposite reaction, maybe the other sides tension is off
a bit?

I have old wooden doors right now (getting ready to changover to new
ones shortly) when the right door cocks I just give it a "jerk" to the side
and it levels out.

What about where the turn is? are the turns level with each other? I
think thats where my problems lies, the tracks are a bit loose and when the
one side moves is when it "cocks"?

I hope I'm helping, if I could see it I may be a better help

RIch


Are you sure the new springs are of equal force? You could try
switching from one side to the other. Or buy another set. Also you
can set one to have more initial tension than the other, but it sounds
like you tried that already. But first, I'd set the tracks to
somewhere in the mid range. You seem to have gone from very close to
the door, to the other extreme. Other than cocking and binding, is
the door fairly well balanced through it's range?

I'd also have someone manually work the door while you look closely at
the various areas to see if you can see what is going wrong.

Crooked garage door
 

"jeff37" wrote in message
oups.com...
OK, I have an extension spring garage door I've been doing battle with
for months now. A couple of months ago, I replaced the springs (one
broke) and also replaced a bunch of the worn hinges and rollers.

I also tried to straighten the tracks a bit, because the button on the
bottom bracket (that attaches to the pull cable) had always been
scraping against the tracks and causing issues. First, I set the
tracks at 1/2" away from the door on both sides. The scraping was
much worse that way, and sometimes it would cause the door to jam. It
seemed to get worse over the course of a few weeks, even after I
readjusted the spring tension a few times.

I then pulled the tracks as far apart as possible, to keep the thing
from scraping. Now my problem is that the door always becomes crooked
when being lowered. By the time it gets near the bottom, it jams and
resets. I've toyed with the tension quite a bit, and this doesn't
seem to do anything. I think the problem is more with the tracks, but
I can't figure out quite what is going on.

Any thoughts on what I need to do to stop this? Also, for the track,
should it tilt either towards or away from the garage as it goes
down? In my case, the bottom of the vertical track is maybe an inch
closer to the inside of the garage than the top. I've seen this is
typical based on the couple of other doors I checked, but I'm not
sure. I did try straightening it at one point, but it made the button
sticking worse (tho unpredictable).

Any help is appreciated. I'm sick of this, and its starting to get
cold outside!

The track should be closer to the jamb at the bottom. The hinges should
correspondingly be shorter from the door to the roller axle at the bottom.
This makes the door tighten toward the jamb as it goes down but keeps the
entire door even with the jamb. You may have some improper or mixed up
hinges.

Don Young