Primer on 'fixing' sliding garage door
Can anyone point me in the direction of step-by-step process for diagnosing and fixing our almost-impossible to slide garage doors? Actually one side slides fine, but the other is very nearly immobile. It seems to be hanging at a slight angle, and scraping the outside of the other door. Strange that only one is difficult to move, though. Any thoughts/advice would be appreciated.
malcolm
Malcom,
First, clean and oil the track the door hangs from...Sometimes these get rusty. A wire brush, fine sandpaper and wd40 are all you need. If that doesn't help, Maybe your door is dragging, and you'll need to adjust the door hardware to raise the door. It's not too hard.
When the door is at it's stickiest point (I assume its dragging on the ground) you should make the adjustment..
At the top of each door you'll see the two points that attatch the door to the rollers. At each point the door is hanging from a piece of threaded rod that is attatched to the door with two nuts. The one you can see is the lock nut, below the metal bracket is the other one. First, loosen the top nut, the lock nut. Then you'll need a fixed wrench of the right size that can slide underneath to grab the bottom one. When you have that wrench in there, use an adjustable wrench to grab the threaded rod (it has two flat sides for this reason) and turn it clockwise while making sure the other wrench is gripping the bottom nut. This should raise the door. give it a quarter or half inch clearance...You may need to adjust your lockset after this procedure...
If its not hitting the ground and is still sticky, the rollers themselves may becorroded or dirty. You can remove them and service them fairly easily.
Loosen the locknuts descirbed above. THen you'll see that the door can be pushed toawrd the exterior and it will slide off the bracket. (Be careful, the doors are heavy. ) Once the doors are off, the rollers should be able to slide off the end of the track...
Good luck
-Steve
