Members Coaster Posted August 22, 2011 Members Share Posted August 22, 2011 sorry, i cant find what i need and hope someone here has experience with this. my shop remodel is going along, and i replaced one garage door opener after finishing that part of the ceiling panels. i redid all the brackets and wiring, and rehung the entire assembly 1.25" lower than it was. i also leveled out the door rails as they dipped in the rear before i started this project. one garage door and opener remains untouched by me, i'm doing half at a time. here is my issue: i know the door i redid needs adjustment. i have the instructions and think i will be ok, but i notice that BOTH doors are doing something peculiar: when the door becomes fully closed, the long black bar that the chain rides on bucks up and arches like a spring, and i can see it pivot near the wall. i cant find anything in the instructions about this. i dont know that i care too much other than due to this arching, the 1.25" i dropped it is not enough to keep it from slamming into the ceiling when this happens. i dont think this is supposed to happen(?) i'm no expert on garage doors but maybe both are out of whack? or is this normal. at rest there is near 2" between the bar and ceiling. i cant go any lower, its 9' ceiling and 8' door. its as low as i can go Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Redbassman86 Posted August 22, 2011 Members Share Posted August 22, 2011 If you look at the door and rails from the side, the rear of the rails should be lower than the front rails. What I believe is happening in your case is that your door is now being pushed if you will into the ground, and I'd image the tension of the springs is causing you some grief as the top of the door has moved lower, but the ground is still where it was, so the door is looking to be 1.25" shorter than it once was. Perhaps? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Coaster Posted August 22, 2011 Author Members Share Posted August 22, 2011 i think you are right, i think, the stops need adjusted. the weird thing is the other door does the same arch thing and i didnt touch that one yet. the rear of the rails needs to be lower? right now i have them exactly level but the were a little lower before. that could be tricky but i can make a shim out of 1/2" plywood to go inbetween the angle iron and the ceiling. opener is a genie pro max (they both are) wait - the top of the door hasnt moved lower - i only raised the rear of the tracks a little due to hole spacing and added ceiling panels. i did lower the entire opener 1.25" if i add a .5" shim i can get the rear of the rails right back where they were before i started. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Shaster Posted August 22, 2011 Members Share Posted August 22, 2011 sorry, i cant find what i need and hope someone here has experience with this. my shop remodel is going along, and i replaced one garage door opener after finishing that part of the ceiling panels. i redid all the brackets and wiring, and rehung the entire assembly 1.25" lower than it was. i also leveled out the door rails as they dipped in the rear before i started this project. one garage door and opener remains untouched by me, i'm doing half at a time. My knowledge of garage door openers is limited to the time I had one of my doors professionally replaced. One morning, the spring broke, and the force of the door crashing to the ground was enormous. I had quite a talk with the garage door installer about how much tension the spring was under. So my only is advice is to watch yourself - and don't break the spring! On a side note, I always feel lazy when I read about all the stuff you're doing. Almost makes me want to get up off of my ass Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Coaster Posted August 22, 2011 Author Members Share Posted August 22, 2011 So my only is advice is to watch yourself - and don't break the spring! AGREED. my last shop had the most heavy door i have ever seen, and one day the spring broke while it was just sitting there. i literally couldnt lift the door up past around a foot! i had never thought about it before but there is a transition your arms go through when we open a door - go open your door and watch what your arms do - you might be surprised that there are two or three distinct positions your arms are in while you open the door. you lift a foot or two, then transition your arms while relying on the spring to hold it there - no spring, door crashes down. see at first you PULL the door up a little, twist your arms and then PUSH the door up. go try it! i never thought about it so i never knew. finally depending on the door and handle there may be a third position where you travel your arms horizontally like throwing a ball when the door is nearly up. without that spring you cant open a heavy door even if you can lift it because you cant change your arm position. light doors no problem, but my old shop door had thick wood panels and had a double sizr spring. fortunately the doors i am working with now are very light and only have a small spring. i dont know if this is right or not but the guy who fixed the spring on my uber heavy door said that these springs are only rated for 1000 cycles. i did some math and thats only good for around a year or two, so maybe thats wrong. anyway so i was trapped in my old shop and couldnt open the door past a foot - and it took all my might to open it that far - i dont know what it weighed but i know what a 100# speaker feels like when i dead lift it and this was MUCH HEAVIER than that. i just couldmt get it higher than a foot - so i found something to jam under there that i could kick under the door with my boot (because i couldnt use my hands), changed my hand position and lifter the door to around my elbows (this is where the second transition comes in) and jammed my shoulders under the door while bent over so i could get the door up the rest of the way. this must be why the rear rails need to have a dip? anyway i got it up and grabbed a vise grip to hold it open and called the repair guy. he had it fixed in about 20 minutes. oh, and i feel lazy too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author Craig Vecchione Posted August 22, 2011 CMS Author Share Posted August 22, 2011 The GDO's track arm is a compression member...there's a pulley at each end that the chain rides around, and in both directions (closing and opening) the chain is pulling on one side or the other, but it's pulling, so it's trying to bend the track arm. When the door reaches a stop, or the floor, the chain/motor will continue pushing until the motor stops. In that short moment the track arm will have more compression force and will bend. It's normal for chain and belt drive GDO's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Coaster Posted August 22, 2011 Author Members Share Posted August 22, 2011 The GDO's track arm is a compression member...there's a pulley at each end that the chain rides around, and in both directions (closing and opening) the chain is pulling on one side or the other, but it's pulling, so it's trying to bend the track arm. When the door reaches a stop, or the floor, the chain/motor will continue pushing until the motor stops. In that short moment the track arm will have more compression force and will bend. It's normal for chain and belt drive GDO's. so this bending of the T-rail is normal and to be expected? i need to go look and see if i have room to drop the front a little more. its tight in there for real estate. too much lower and the spring is in the way; the ceiling joists are at 109" and thats not a lot of wiggle room. right now the front pulley and part of the T-rail is hitting the panels when the door is closed; door open there is plenty of daylight between the two. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mogwix Posted August 22, 2011 Members Share Posted August 22, 2011 At my last job, our garage doors were always breaking. We had to have them up and down a lot during the day, and it seems every couple months they were breaking down. Lift cables snapping, springs breaking, rollers worn out, lift motor burnt out... I remember standing in the back room early one saturday morning when the spring for the garage door snapped, as it was going down. I was maybe 15 ft away from it, and it scared the {censored} outta me. I swear a shotgun went off. There were a couple of times where we needed to get the doors open with a broken spring or broken lift cables, not fun at all. We had to pry the door up from the ground and put some shims under it, then put the forks on our front-loader and use that to open the door. No way we were going to do that by hand. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author Craig Vecchione Posted August 23, 2011 CMS Author Share Posted August 23, 2011 At my last job, our garage doors were always breaking. We had to have them up and down a lot during the day, and it seems every couple months they were breaking down. Lift cables snapping, springs breaking, rollers worn out, lift motor burnt out... I remember standing in the back room early one saturday morning when the spring for the garage door snapped, as it was going down. I was maybe 15 ft away from it, and it scared the {censored} outta me. I swear a shotgun went off. There were a couple of times where we needed to get the doors open with a broken spring or broken lift cables, not fun at all. We had to pry the door up from the ground and put some shims under it, then put the forks on our front-loader and use that to open the door. No way we were going to do that by hand. This really sounds like the springs were seriously undersized for the door, and were being overtensioned to compensate. That'll cause them to fail early, and for the GDO motor and mechanism to wear and fail as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Coaster Posted August 23, 2011 Author Members Share Posted August 23, 2011 i was able to adjust the close/open stops and readjust the "J" bar that connects the door to the carriage so that the door opens and closes correctly and the t-rail doesnt buck up or hit the ceiling when the door is closed. i think i still would like to drop the header bracket a little but i dont think i have much more than 1/2" to work with at that point. i rechecked and i do not have a genie max, i have an "overhead door legacy" which is identical in every way including the instructions. they have to be made by the same outfit and rebadged. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author Craig Vecchione Posted August 23, 2011 CMS Author Share Posted August 23, 2011 so this bending of the T-rail is normal and to be expected? i need to go look and see if i have room to drop the front a little more. its tight in there for real estate. too much lower and the spring is in the way; the ceiling joists are at 109" and thats not a lot of wiggle room.right now the front pulley and part of the T-rail is hitting the panels when the door is closed; door open there is plenty of daylight between the two. A few pictures would really help here if you can post them; I'm having trouble visualizing what you describe. It sounds as if this is a torsion spring door, correct? And it's an 8-foot door? As I mentioned earlier, if this is true, you may need to change the guide rails to a low-clearance setup. Basically the rails start to curve lower, and the top panel's top rollers are on a different carriage that allows the panel to close tightly, but tilts in at a faster rate than with a "normal" door track setup. This gives you more clearance from the top panel to the ceiling. Here are some examples:http://www.stardoorparts.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=246060&click=2 http://www.bonanza.com/listings/Garage-Door-Quick-Turn-Low-Headroom-Bracket-2-Rollers/17217129 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Coaster Posted August 23, 2011 Author Members Share Posted August 23, 2011 i think its called a torsion spring, its a cylindrical spring that runs along a shaft and twists when the door is opened/closed. the spring is right above the door on the header. the instructions say to have 2.5" clearance between the topmost height of the door and the t-rail; and i do have that - maybe as much as 3.5". the issue with lowering the t-rail is that its real close to the spring right now after dropping it 1.25", the bottom of the header bracket for the t-rail is around 1" above the top of the spring, it may be more as i am going from memory right now but its close. my point is i cant lower the t-rail much more without interfering with the torsion spring. the axle for the spring looks integral to the door mechanism and i would rather not move the spring(!) and i dont think i could even if i wanted to. i'll try and get some pics Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author Craig Vecchione Posted August 23, 2011 CMS Author Share Posted August 23, 2011 i think its called a torsion spring, its a cylindrical spring that runs along a shaft and twists when the door is opened/closed. the spring is right above the door on the header. the instructions say to have 2.5" clearance between the topmost height of the door and the t-rail; and i do have that - maybe as much as 3.5". the issue with lowering the t-rail is that its real close to the spring right now after dropping it 1.25", the bottom of the header bracket for the t-rail is around 1" above the top of the spring, it may be more as i am going from memory right now but its close.my point is i cant lower the t-rail much more without interfering with the torsion spring. the axle for the spring looks integral to the door mechanism and i would rather not move the spring(!) and i dont think i could even if i wanted to.i'll try and get some pics Yes, that's absolutely a torsion spring. A conventional tension spring setup would have either one or two springs running parallel to the horizontal top rails, with a pulley and wire rope system to pull on the door. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members W. M. Hellinger Posted August 23, 2011 Members Share Posted August 23, 2011 This really sounds like the springs were seriously undersized for the door, and were being overtensioned to compensate. That'll cause them to fail early, and for the GDO motor and mechanism to wear and fail as well. Possibly the springs were installed/tensioned incorrectly. As I understand it (and in my experience), the spring(s) need to be pre-tensioned to the full pre-tension amount before the set-screws are set on the spring pipe. This allows the springs to expand to their full tensioned length while sliding unimpeeded on the spring pipe... then lock-down the spring set-screws. If this proceedure isn't followed, it's likely the springs will bind as the door closes. Note: Pre-tensioning garage door springs is tricky business, best left of pros who have the right tools and know-how... unless you have the proper tools, and you know exactly what you're doing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author Craig Vecchione Posted August 24, 2011 CMS Author Share Posted August 24, 2011 Possibly the springs were installed/tensioned incorrectly.As I understand it (and in my experience), the spring(s) need to be pre-tensioned to the full pre-tension amount before the set-screws are set on the spring pipe. This allows the springs to expand to their full tensioned length while sliding unimpeeded on the spring pipe... then lock-down the spring set-screws. If this proceedure isn't followed, it's likely the springs will bind as the door closes.Note: Pre-tensioning garage door springs is tricky business, best left of pros who have the right tools and know-how... unless you have the proper tools, and you know exactly what you're doing. Yes, all true. Something was not done right...I've never seen garage door springs fail that quickly without there being an installation error. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TimmyP Posted August 24, 2011 Members Share Posted August 24, 2011 The springs should be adjusted so that no matter what the position of the door, the door wants to close - not enough spring tension to hold it open. This is so that there's not a reversal of force on the door opener (so there's no transition from the opener having to pull the door up to the opener having to slow the door's ascent). If the bar is bowing when the door is closed, the down-stop needs to be adjusted to that the motor stops earlier. Adjust the stop so it kills the motor way early, then tweak little by little 'till the door closes, but the bottom weather-seal does not fully compress. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members W. M. Hellinger Posted August 24, 2011 Members Share Posted August 24, 2011 Yes, all true. Something was not done right...I've never seen garage door springs fail that quickly without there being an installation error. Yes, I suspect the springs are binding and the drums are smashing against the support bearings... and the center carrier is going through motions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author Craig Vecchione Posted August 24, 2011 CMS Author Share Posted August 24, 2011 The springs should be adjusted so that no matter what the position of the door, the door wants to close - not enough spring tension to hold it open. This is so that there's not a reversal of force on the door opener (so there's no transition from the opener having to pull the door up to the opener having to slow the door's ascent). This is why I'm not really on board with redbassman's earlier comment suggesting that the top rails should slope down toward the back of the garage. Doing so would cause the door to accelerate upward while opening, and increase the closing force needed. Every door installation instruction I've used wanted the top rails level, and most importantly, *parallel* (so the door doesn't either bind and the rollers, or if spread, let the door fall off the rollers) for safety. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Coaster Posted August 24, 2011 Author Members Share Posted August 24, 2011 i dont know if this site is correct or even if i am interpreting what they are saying but have a look with me here: http://www.aaaremotes.com/garagedoorinstallation.html "18. TRACK BACK-HANGS-Gently allow the door to open half way, making sure your horizontal tracks are not too wide, or the door will fall out of the tracks. Center the door in the opening and use your hammer to straighten the horizontal tracks by rapping them at each roller, and recheck centering, keeping in mind that the track should rise from 1/2" to 1-1/2" at the rear. Measure the drop from the ceiling and cut the perforated angle accordingly. The drops should be straight and plumb, both front to back and side to side so you will probably have to drill a hole in the track somewhere other than the very end." i need to check more instructions (i have no idea what door i have but they are all so similar) but that one seems to say in a very awkward manner that the rear of the rails should be lower although it does not say why. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Coaster Posted August 24, 2011 Author Members Share Posted August 24, 2011 The springs should be adjusted so that no matter what the position of the door, the door wants to close - not enough spring tension to hold it open. ok but what about a fully open door without any type of opener? shouldnt it stay open? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author Craig Vecchione Posted August 24, 2011 CMS Author Share Posted August 24, 2011 i dont know if this site is correct or even if i am interpreting what they are saying but have a look with me here:http://www.aaaremotes.com/garagedoorinstallation.html"18. TRACK BACK-HANGS-Gently allow the door to open half way, making sure your horizontal tracks are not too wide, or the door will fall out of the tracks. Center the door in the opening and use your hammer to straighten the horizontal tracks by rapping them at each roller, and recheck centering, keeping in mind that the track should rise from 1/2" to 1-1/2" at the rear. Measure the drop from the ceiling and cut the perforated angle accordingly. The drops should be straight and plumb, both front to back and side to side so you will probably have to drill a hole in the track somewhere other than the very end."i need to check more instructions (i have no idea what door i have but they are all so similar) but that one seems to say in a very awkward manner that the rear of the rails should be lower although it does not say why. "Rise...at the rear" tells me the tracks should...rise at the rear, with "rear" meaning higher at the end of the rail, not higher at the garage door opening. FWIW, those intructions look exactly the same as what I have for a Clopay door I installed in February. I'll revisit mine to see if it also recommends rising at the rear. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author Craig Vecchione Posted August 24, 2011 CMS Author Share Posted August 24, 2011 ok but what about a fully open door without any type of opener? shouldnt it stay open? Yes, but the track doesn't have to slope down toward the rear for the door to stay open. If the rails are level it will. In my experience, if the rails slope down toward the door as in those instructions, it becomes very difficult to adjust the springs as also recommended in the instructions...so that the door is at equilibrium when approximately halfway open. What I've invariably had happen with the track sloping down towards the door opening, is that because the door is hanging from the springs when fully open, they need more tension than if the track was level. The extra tension is needed to keep the door from "sagging" where the lower panel is halfway round the curve, and you don't get full headroom. The result of this extra tension is that the springs then want to continue pulling the door open all the way to the closed position. You want the door to 'want' to close from halfway down to fully closed, and be at balance halfway. As more sections go 'round the rail bend, there's less weight, which balances the reduced spring tension available as it releases. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Coaster Posted August 24, 2011 Author Members Share Posted August 24, 2011 so if i have them set parallel to the ground (like i do right now) i should be ok? i actually cheated quite heavily when i did this - rather than measuring tape i used a 2x2 and cut two pieces that fit snug between the floor and the track and the wall and the track. then i used these pieces at the rear of the track in the same manner. its all within 1/16" inch of itself. the one door i put back together is working very well, actually much smoother than before i took it apart. the one i am working on now had a serious clunk in the middle i could not identify but i am sure will cause me grief when i put it back together. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CMS Author Craig Vecchione Posted August 24, 2011 CMS Author Share Posted August 24, 2011 the one door i put back together is working very well, actually much smoother than before i took it apart. the one i am working on now had a serious clunk in the middle i could not identify but i am sure will cause me grief when i put it back together. Look at the carriage bolts in the track. Usually a clunk is one that was not pressed in enough to seat and protrudes to the point a roller hits it. It can cause grief if the opener's safety reverse detects the sudden jar as a someone's head, and reverses the door. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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