&*!@##** Garage Doors

[Road Guy]

Well when it rains it poors...

Wife went to open garage door yesterday.. the metal bracket that holds the opener to the garage door decided to remove itself from where it was attached..

close inspection reveals that they use fairly small sheet metal screws to hold this bracket..

as not wanting to spend a grand on a new door.. anyone had this issue, I was thinking about getting some carriage bolts and trying to re attach, and at least get bye for a year or so..

 

[roadwreck]

Is this the bracket that is attached to the door itself? Labeled as the "door bracket" in the diagram below?

 

[MA_PE]

Assuming you have a conventional chain-drive opener, are you talking about the bracket at the top of the door that connects to the trolley on the opener?

There is no reason you cannot through drill and connect with some carriage bolts.

 

[roadwreck]

^^

what MA said

 

[snickerd3]

Our garage door looks like it has been fixed as described.

 

[Road Guy]

meant to attach this photo, but I think yes

 

[roadwreck]

Is the door panel bent? If you do opt to replace the bracket you may want to try to find a way to disperse the load across a wider area or stronger portion of the door. From that picture it looks like the existing bracket was deforming the door.

 

[MA_PE]

^ what RW said.

 

[Road Guy]

its hard to tell from my crappy picture, but there is a T shaped piece of metal that runs the entire length of the door that I think is "supposed" to disperse the load...

This is a 15 year old metal door, I think the new ones are much lighter, I am gonna take a stab at this tonight but if it doesnt look right Im just gonna doa Home Depot 6 months same as cash and let them install a new door..

Its the 16' garage door.. we never park in the garage, part of me really wants to frame it in and do one 10' garage door and ad a regular door off to the side, but I think not haveing the "double " garage in the future would hurt my house resale..

 

[roadwreck]

Does the tension on the garage door need to be adjusted? The door shouldn't be that hard to open/close if the tension in the springs is adjusted properly. This may be the real cause of the problem. I'd hate to replace a whole garage door just for a broken bracket.

 

[mudpuppy]

How much is a replacement door? Replacing it yourself really isn't that big a deal. . . I did both of mine (9' doors), reusing the exsiting track and everything. Wasn't much of a hassle. Two doors for about $500 total.

 

[Dexman PE PMP]

I would also look at the rails/wheels. The motor may be struggling to lift the door iIf one of the rails is slightly off or the wheels need to be re-lubricated. I know there are several garage-door repair men out there who would be able to do a complete "tune-up" to get it back up to snuff (address everything discussed so far plus more) for much cheaper than buying a new door.

 

[MA_PE]

The first step in diagnosing any opener problem is to confirm the door operates properly. A properly balanced door should be able to stay open midway without any support and require only marginal assitance to open or close from there.

Do you have two springs at the soides or a single torsion spring over the top of the door?

With extension springs, new springs, pulleys and cable can work wonders. On another note, grease is not recommended for the rollers, etc. Brush on some motor oil (used is ok). GRease will build up and get thick with time and the oil will not.

 

[Dexman PE PMP]

On another note, grease is not recommended for the rollers, etc. Brush on some motor oil (used is ok). GRease will build up and get thick with time and the oil will not.

Agreed. I edited my earlier post to say lubricate instead of grease...

 

[engineergurl]

my garage door was not functioning properly... it would open, and close, but the little sensor things weren't working, so you had to stand in the garage and hold the button down to override the sensors... after 3 years, I finally called someone... $130... they tightened the screw that connected the sensors to the operator by like a quarter of a turn... lesson learned for me...

 

[Capt Worley PE]

Makes me glad we don't have garage doors.

 

[snickerd3]

RoadWreck...I just noticed your avatar...hilarious. Both of my friends babies are chunkers like that. One is 2 months old and wearing 6 month clothes already...if they did a picture with a little wagon that would be it exactly...

 

[MA_PE]

FWIW, on many doors you know the sensors are an issue if the door won't close and the light blinks 10 times. The first thing to check is alignment. They have LEDs on each sensors. One (sender) is always lit indicating power, the other (receiver) lights when it get a goo signal from the sender. The receiver LED should be on steady without any flickering. A small adjustment can make the diference.

EG: Too bad you didn't post here first. We could have gotten it figured out.

 

[Dexman PE PMP]

^^^ My sensors are setup so one is a sender/receiver and the other is a reflector. The reflector is a concave mirror similar to the ones used by survey teams that work no matter which way the mirror is pointed (as long as it's at least facing close to the right direction). This way we only have one wire.

 

[engineergurl]

yes, I'm sure when I said, none of the lights on them would come on at all, y'all would have told me that there was no connection/power/magic running to them...