ULTIMATE SURVIVALIST - Fixing a Garage Door if you Can't hire a "Garage Door Guy"

[St. Phatty]

ULTIMATE SURVIVALIST - Fixing a Garage Door if you Can't hire a "Garage Door Guy"



My garage door got knocked out of whack about 2 weeks ago when I was cleaning the garage.

I think what happened is, one of the horizontal tracks moved sideways over time.

Then when it got caught, I made the mistake of using force - pushing down harder.

By the time I figured out that pushing harder was not a good idea, I had somehow managed to bend the brackets that hold the track the rollers move in.

That seemed IMPOSSIBLE since I'm 64 years old.

Anyway, I tracked down the guy that helped me 10 years ago. He changed employers and now only does new installs.

The store manager told me that my door was impossibly damaged and that I would need to spend $2K on a new door.

That sent me looking at other places, and I found the BROTHER in LAW of the guy that helped me 10 years ago.

So I'm probably on the right TRACK (garage door joke )

but it leaves me wondering - how do you fix a garage door that has come out of its track - without hiring 2 Linebacker size Guys (or women) ?



When I removed the 2 brackets that were bent, and then the Track that they were in, the pulley pulled the door into a "Tortilla" shape.

One of the tubes that the rollers fit in, came flying off. I got a piece of steel tube and epoxied it in place.

Had to turn down the ID of the shaft of the roller, on a lathe, to get the roller to fit in the new steel tube. I still haven't found the old steel tube.

Last 2 pictures show the Bent Bracket, and the straightened brackets.

One local welding shop helped me with the roller in the replacement tube.

Another shop helped me with straightening out the bent brackets.

BUT I am left wondering - 2 what if's -

* what if the 2 shops that helped me straighten things, and that helped me get the roller fitting in the new steel tube, weren't there ? I might be able to buy new brackets. But it's possible that I would be SCREWED.

* what if I didn't have a skilled guy to help me put the door back in the tracks ?

As far as I can tell, I would need 1 Big Guy (or woman) and a medium sized person, to help me remove the steel cable that has it rolled into a pretzel.

I THINK the basic idea is to get it sitting pretty in the door to the garage, and to then feed the rollers into the tracks. Lift the door up 6 feet somehow, and attach it to the automatic garage door opener.


Anyway, it sure is interesting.

Covid19 has definitely impacted the Garage Door industry.

 

[exploziv]

Would ratchet straps, attention and patience work? You just need to find some anchoring points and make sure you never sit in a dangerous position as to get fked if something fails.
And its very possible that you bent something, as the system is designed as a pulley system, where you get a force multiplier advantage, so you force might have been multiplied a few times before it was acting on the metal.

 

[St. Phatty]

Would ratchet straps, attention and patience work? You just need to find some anchoring points and make sure you never sit in a dangerous position as to get fked if something fails.
And its very possible that you bent something, as the system is designed as a pulley system, where you get a force multiplier advantage, so you force might have been multiplied a few times before it was acting on the metal.

Good point. I am definitely concerned about Safety.

It is not difficult to get your fingers squished in the door. Seriously squished.

Which would mean a tweaked garage door turned into a serious medical problem.

The wrong direction to go in.


I tied the top of the door to the horizontal tracks with rope, since it seemed preferable to having all that weight leaning on the rollers that haven't come out.

If I had infinite time and no one to help lift, making something like a Cherry picker (for a car engine) that can hold the garage door 8 feet off the ground, and gently lower it to the ground ... maybe that would work.

Ratchet straps or a Come-along might be helpful for lifting.


The horizontal track is 35 inches from the wall on one side, where the bracket is.

Then it bowed towards the wall a few inches. So I made a wood thing to hold the bracket in a less bowed position. Will get a picture of that.

 

[tobedetermined]

The first and last time that I worked on my garage door, I ended up drilling a nice 1/4" hole halfway through the middle finger on my left hand. They are evil things.

 

[exploziv]

Yeah, there are a lot of dangers if you don't understand how those moving parts work, as well. So make sure you don't do stuff before thinking, also more than a pair of eyes would be better to have there, to see any dangers that may show. Because sometimes you don't see yourself when you are in a bad spot or in danger while working on something..

 

[St. Phatty]

Yeah, there are a lot of dangers if you don't understand how those moving parts work, as well. So make sure you don't do stuff before thinking, also more than a pair of eyes would be better to have there, to see any dangers that may show. Because sometimes you don't see yourself when you are in a bad spot or in danger while working on something..

One of the guys that helped me described how the spring-loaded pulleys can Explode. He used that term. Plus he's a welder & metal worker so he doesn't use the term Explode lightly.

The guy who looks like he's going to help fix it, says he needs 10 feet clear in front of the door.

Since the garage is 20 x 20 and full of stuff, and we're about to get a whole bunch of RAIN, I can't put stuff outside.

I suck at house-cleaning.

I feel like BURNING THE WHOLE FUCKING GARAGE DOWN.

I won't but I think that might feel good for 5 seconds.

It will take me 3 days to clear 10 feet in front of the door.

 

[armedoldhippy]

easy to get hurt dealing with those damn things. worked with a guy for a while that installed/repaired them. be DAMN careful around that wound spring ...

 

[St. Phatty]

easy to get hurt dealing with those damn things. worked with a guy for a while that installed/repaired them. be DAMN careful around that wound spring ...

once when I was in college I was making a Player Piano type thing and had some piano wire, holding it using pliars and needle-nose pliers.

It was all wound up and slipped and un-wound through my finger.

Obviously not that big a deal for Stelarc fans, he's an Aussie artist & robotics genius that likes to pierce his body with pieces of metal.

But it got my attention. I figure out that I needed some Dykes or Dikes, to cut the wire on one side of my finger.

Then it was easy and pretty much a relief to pull it out of my finger.

Now that we've talked about it

"Keep your head out of the path of the winding cone."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SPB6zNDmWA

TRANSLATION -

* Garage doors are very poorly designed.

A ruggedized mechanism would never break like mine did.

if the vertical piece and horizontal pieces had bracing to keep them within a 1/2 inch of the factory position -
we wouldn't be talking about it.


It's a Piece of Shit that is made to deflect, then often breaks or at least requires service when it deflects.

"You’ll know the spring on your garage door has broken because it is typically marked by a loud bang, similar to the sound of an exploding firework."


As Piece of Shit mechanisms go - it's a GREAT mechanism, just poorly implemented.


Maybe they should rate Products by how much they make people Swear.

"Has this product caused you to say, "Motherfvcking G*ddamn Christ" ?"

If so please call the "Took God's Name in Vain" hotline at Underwriter's Laboratories.


I know I'm only about the Billionth person that has had to deal with a garage door that broke when it probably shouldn't have.

I guess I'm a little surprised that nobody has cleaned up by selling a slightly higher quality door that a normal human can't fvck up.

It would mean spending an extra few hundred or $500 on brackets & braces for the 2 horizontal parts, and 2 more pieces to stiffen each of the vertical pieces.

 

[CosmicGiggle]

.............. The guy who looks like he's going to help fix it, says he needs 10 feet clear in front of the door.

Since the garage is 20 x 20 and full of stuff, and we're about to get a whole bunch of RAIN, I can't put stuff outside.

I suck at house-cleaning.

I feel like BURNING THE WHOLE FUCKING GARAGE DOWN.

...........

It will take me 3 days to clear 10 feet in front of the door.

That's quite a dilemma for a hoarder, rent a dumpster or a storage unit, make a decision?

 

[Amynamous]

That's quite a dilemma for a hoarder, rent a dumpster or a storage unit, make a decision?

Or go the cheaper route that Phatty mentioned above.
a gallon of gas and a match.

 

[CosmicGiggle]

Or go the cheaper route that Phatty mentioned above.
a gallon of gas and a match.

What, and lose alla that valuable 'stuff'?

 

[BadTicket]

The first and last time that I worked on my garage door, I ended up drilling a nice 1/4" hole halfway through the middle finger on my left hand. They are evil things.

Oh yea, first and last time I worked on one was when a buddy asked me to help with fixing his sliding door that was slighty bent and only moved like 1/4 way. Guy said allz we gotta do, is lift the damn thing back up to the frame and it will sort itself out. Then we spent like 2 hours bending the damn shit just to get it straight again, then lifted it back on the rail. Then it still didn´t move, so we had to fine tune it. Then we got it working, but soon as we got the damn thing open almost all the way, we got attacked by bees that had made a nest on the rail and we disturbed the damn thing and I got stung near me eye. My buddy was laughing but then he took one on his cheek and another one on the shoulder. Then we just ran outta there.

Then two weeks later after the swelling came down, went back there and removed the bees nest thinking it was cool. Fucking McGyver fix we did lasted about 3 weeks before the whole shit came down.

He didn´t wanna buy a new door either, so I told him to torch the damn shit cause it was full of junk anyways. But he didn´t wanna do that, so we just boarded the doorway up and called it a day.
Not the best solution if you need a door that works. But luckily he just stored crap in there and it had a small backdoor which was enough.
Which was kind of a bummer because it woulda made a nice fire, and burning stuff is always good fun.

But yea, thinking about garage doors and escalators keeps me up at night. And sometimes bees. And drugs..

Other than that, can´t complain.

If there´s a vote on what to do, my vote is on burning tha shit.

 

[armedoldhippy]

i think it was actually a pretty good idea, but then the maker made it as fucking cheap as they could. IE- flimsy brackets etc, for maximum profit. short-sighted SOBs IMHO

 

[buzzmobile]

Then when it got caught, I made the mistake of using force - pushing down harder.

"Don't force it. Get a bigger hammer."

---Dad

Beware of the tension on the spring.

 

[Three Berries]

Last year I had to completely reset my rails and door. The header above the door and the studs on the right side were all chewed up by termites. Did it all by myself without taking the door out.

 

[St. Phatty]

That's quite a dilemma for a hoarder, rent a dumpster or a storage unit, make a decision?

Hoarding is the Sport of Queens and Kings.

Of course there are some Kings who are also Queens, but that's a different story.

Americans think they're clever because they buy stuff made out of Polyethylene, and carry it home in Polyethylene bags, then throw it away.

And then buy new stuff made out of Polyethylene.

Then they Whine about pollution from Petrochemicals.

If they were actually clever, they would learn to melt down the Polyethylene (it's about 1/5 as difficult as melting aluminum and the fumes are gnarlier) and make their own new stuff.

 

[CosmicGiggle]

.......... If they were actually clever, they would learn to melt down the Polyethylene (it's about 1/5 as difficult as melting aluminum and the fumes are gnarlier) and make their own new stuff.

........... but that project would require some room/space which means that 'they' would have to clean out the garage.

See where I'm going with this?

SPAM ALERT: 1-800-Got-Junk

 

[armedoldhippy]

........... but that project would require some room/space which means that 'they' would have to clean out the garage.

See where I'm going with this?

SPAM ALERT: 1-800-Got-Junk

so, you're saying that one of his neighbors/friends needs to do him a favor by torching the place, so he gets a fresh start with an empty slate & the insurance money? or am i reading too much into this...hmmm.

 

[St. Phatty]

I got lucky, FINALLY.

Turns out, I knew the guy I hired. He managed a local hardware store I went to for about 9 years, till one of the other store managers ripped me off.

The guy is a TOTAL PRO. He's about 5' 3" and might have trouble lifting a whole door.

He took the door apart and put it back together.

That part some of us could do.

Setting the tension on the spring ... I don't think I could do.

I paid him $120 for 1 hour's work, and tipped him an ounce of Silver.

Now I'm grateful that the other store manager tried to sell me a new garage door. That's what caused me to call the guy that ended up fixing it.

He's going on Christmas break so he had a whole bunch of appointments on Saturday afternoon.

It was sort of like watching someone on Meth operate a wrench, cause he was FAST. He used a power tool to un-screw and screw a few hundred screws.

He says he stopped drinking coffee, though.

 

[Amynamous]

What, and lose alla that valuable 'stuff'?

“Valuable stuff”? You must’ve seen a different picture.