On my garage door, when middle of the five wheels on one side goes through the joint in the track, the door kind of hangs up and causes the whole door track assembly to vibrate. Condidering it is the middle wheel I gotta think the wheel is bad. Because if it was an issue with the track out of square or the track joint being out of align the the problem would occur when the first wheel rolled through the joint.
Anybody ever fixed this problem? DW is bitching. Me, I don’t think the vibration is too bad. But then I’d rather read the tool postings than fool with the door.
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First thing to do is lubricate it well. It has to be done periodically....
Edit: "It" being the whole door/track/opener assembly.
Edited 11/27/2005 7:16 pm ET by Matt
The repairman was just here too. That really hacked off the DW too. Of coure it has started doing this after he left. He had to replace the springs. When he was here, he sprayed the door hardware with pure silicon. He was here about a week ago.
The track alignment and the wheel look ok to me.
Big Macs - 99 cents
Just go ahead and replace it. They don't cost much.When you get it out you can see if the bearings are bad and the shaft might be bent.
He had to replace the springs
Why, was one broken? Otherwise, an adjustment and alignment as previoously mentioned is what is needed. If non-broken springs were replaced, I'd be led to think incompetent or dishonest tech/company.
BTW, have installed probably 12 garage doors DIY, only 2 out of the 12 worked perfectely first time. On of worst was at Mom's house 2 years ago January, had to re-align it in the summer for smooth operation -- probably too dang cold (-20F) to get it aligned then, primarily due to the 'installer' wanting to get in out of the cold and having thick gloves on.
Wheels and tracks should not be lubricated because the lubricant attracts dirt which can gum them up.
Check the whole installation for alignment. The sections of the track should join without steps, the two sides should be parallel to each other and square to to the wall. The wheel should float freely axially in the bracket. The fasteners in the track should not be protruding too far.
If the whole track is cocked the door will ride to one side and could hang up. In the spec house I bought two years ago the powered opener was mounted 3" off center in the front and was out of parallel (to one side) with the travel of the door 3 more inches. The track was 2" out of square with the opening, so the door always rode down one side and one wheel jamed on the turn. A couple of evenings of alignment fixed it.
John: be especially aware of Wayne's advice for AXIAL allignment and to NOT ride to one side.
On a well aligned set of tracks, just the wrong spring tension on one side can cause a jam. If you have coil tension springs, one side is likely looser than the other, if torsion springs, then your initial tension on athe cable on one side is higher than the other. Of course if the door opening is crooked and the tracks parallel to the door, you are in a bad situation (been there, done that on a settled 120 YO garage , ended up putting facia boards on the opening for it to look right.