I have a pocket door (circa 1959) which is sticking (it is too low at the front end). There does NOT seem to be any way of adjusting it. The only things I’ve read on it involve tearing out the wall it is built into (a little heavy handed for an adjustment !)
Any suggestions?
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Replies
Can you see the hardware that connects the door to the track? If there's no sort of adjustment there, I would rout a little pocket for the hardware, to pull up the door some.
Can you get the thing out of the door frame without tearing out the wall?
zak
"so it goes"
There is no adjustment that I can see or feel. It is about 8 inches back and just out of reach of my hand. I tried several wrench sizes to see if they would grab onto the thread the wheel was attached to but there is no adjustment nut. It looks as though it was adjusted before installed and never meant to be touched again.
When you say "route" you mean a hole behind the trim (in the top of the door frame) to access the mechanism?
Probably you need to take off the head casing and the strip alongside the door to see what you're doing. It shouldn't be too bad if you're careful about taking it down- cut the paint around the casing with a utility knife, then slowly work the casing off, with a putty knife, then a molding pry bar.
Not a moldy pry bar, a molding one.
Then tell us what you see.
Or try using a mirror and a flashlight to see up there.zak
"so it goes"
I hope you mean head stop, not casing. IF you pull off the casing all you will see is drywall and the pocket frame. If you pull off the 3/8" x 1 1/4"stop on the open side of the track you expose the track and rollers. On single-track models there will be an adjustment either by a hex nut driving a rack & pinion arrangement or an adjusting screw.On double-track types there will be an adjusting bolt hanging from the roller carriage and jam nut to keep the setting from changing.BruceT
Not necessarily. My old pocked doors have absolutely no adjustment. the rollers were like nothing I've ever seen. there was a peice of flat steel with a hole in it screwed to the the top of the door that extended up throughth rollers. a pin was inserted through the rollers and throught the hole in the steel from the door. the rollers consisted of four wooden wheels on metal axles. the axles tuned in grooves that were cut into some kind of wood that was sandwhiched between two more peices of flat steel and riveted together. It's difficult to describe. I'll try the "leg bone is connected to the knee bone method." the doors hang from a "t" shaped bracket that extend up between two peices of flat steel that are sandwhiching two peices of wood that have grooves in the bottom sides to accept the qarter inch axles that each have a wooden wheel on each end that rest in a track that is shaped like an upside down "U" with the edges curled back in. I'm fighing a loosing battle trying to describe this. I'll try to get some pictures. the old wood was so badly worn from 110+ years of use that I had to replace it. this invloved drilling out the rivets, planing some red oak to just under 1/4", cutting hte oak to approx. 1" square and cutting a 1/4" radius grove in the bottoms. I then used maching screws and nuts to sandwhich the wood back between the two steel plates. My only problem now is that when I use them, the squeak so bad from the new wood rolling on the old steel axles.
Antique wooden pocket door rollers,that's new to me! I've not seen anything older than 50 years so far, and in Orange County Cal, I'm not likely to.Wooden rollers may have been common in the 1890's. I restored a quarter-sawn oak dining room table that had casters with hardwood wheels on steel shafts - totally worn out. I had to drill out the centers, glue in a walnut dowel and re-drill the shaft bearing hole.BruceT
Edited 9/25/2006 1:42 pm ET by BruceT999
I keep meaning to get pictures because I have them off right now, but I can't seem to remember to take them. I'll be putting the doors back on by this weekend, so I'll try to remember to snap a few pictures.
Pocket doors are only as good as their hardware. If you're going to take anything apart, you should think about getting a new track/roller system. The good ones have at least three wheels per hangar.
the problem is getting the new track into the old plaster walls. The old ones are easily removable because the end that is inside the wall hooks onto a metal cleat and the exposed end in the center of the doorway screws in. So I jsut have to remove one screw and un-hook hte other end and the old tracks come out easily. If there were new tracks available that worked like this (Johnson and Stanley do not) then replacement would have worked. I'm not interested in tearing into he plaster to replace the hardware since rebuilding it worked fine. Like I said, the only complaint I have is the squeak, but in the three years I've lived in the house, I've only had to close the doors once so it's not an issue.
I see what you mean. But if you were interested in installing new hardware, I would think it wouldn't be hard to fit the new track with a "female" receptor for the cleat- or transplant the end from the old one. Interesting.
On some of the older pocket doors you need to take down the stop strips that runs beside the upper track to get to the adjusting hardware. That also may mean pulling off the head casing, so be real carefull not to break anything if you can't find exact matches for the casing.
BTW, welcome to Breaktime.
Dave
I don't see any stop strips. It's a pretty simple mechanism of a wheel and track - recessed into the frame.
Take off the head casing and see if there are adjustment nuts above the track. I have a pocket door with four rollers in a double track and - IIRC - the head casing has to come off to make adjustments.
I wrote an article on pocket door restoration that appeared in the November, 1994 issue of Old House Journal.
Kowboy
Edited 9/27/2006 12:45 pm ET by Kowboy