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Does your garage door have a hard time moving? Then maybe the tracks are out of alignment.
While adjustments are pretty easy, you need to know whether your door is rubbing or binding.
Whatever the condition of your garage door, there are different ways to adjust it.
Read to know to find out the causes of misalignment and DIY garage door tracks adjustment procedure.
Different Track Issues
The adjustments may vary depending on what types of issues on overhead doors.
Is it binding or rubbing? Or are there are gaps at the sides of the door?
Overhead doors end up in misalignment since they are subject to constant use every day.
A vehicle might bump the garage, or one of the hardware parts are loosening.
Other reasons might be due to worn out rubber moldings.
Regardless of the reason, know these issues found with your tracks to address them right away.
- The garage door is rubbing against the stop molding, which makes it difficult to move.
- The garage door is binding, which makes it difficult to open and close.
- There are gaps between the door and stop molding.
- The garage door is off-balanced or crooked.
An out of alignment garage door can be alarming and dangerous.
If it’s off-balance, the door might fall off-tracks, which can injure anyone.
If the door is rubbing, it can be challenging to enter or leave your car in the garage since the movement is not possible.
Alignment issues can also invite threats and burglary.
To prevent the mentioned scenarios from occurring, it’s best to address the problem quickly.
A DIY garage door tracks adjustment is relatively easy.
Follow the steps below to get your overhead door back on track.
DIY Fix for Binding Garage Doors
1. Loosen up the Screws
You’ll know your garage door is binding if it is difficult to move up or down.
The reason may be due to overly tight screws.
To fix the binding issue, loosen the screws.
Locate the access bolts near the track brackets.
Then, loosen the bolts securing the track brackets with a screwdriver.
2. Adjust the tracks
Tracks are where the rollers are located.
They also connect to the door frame through metal clips.
To properly adjust them, you need to consider the rollers for correct alignment as well.
What you need to do is to adjust the metal clips to allow adjustment of the tracks.
Position them with a rubber mallet to align the garage door back.
3. Tighten the Screws
Once you have aligned the tracks, tighten the screws to secure them in place.
Then, repeat all the steps above for the other track.
DIY Fix for Rubbing or Gaping Garage Doors
For rubbing or gaping garage doors, fix the problem by following the procedure below:
1. Loosen the bolts
Using a wrench, locate the bolts and loosen them up.
In this way, you can secure the tracks back to the brackets.
2. Adjust the Gaps
Since gaping garage doors invite external elements entering into your garage door, it’s time to close the gaps.
Adjust the tracks until there are no gaps between the rubber molding and the door.
Make sure to do this method until the door is between half to three-quarter inches to the track.
Then, repeat this step for the opposite door.
3. Tighten back the bolts
Once you have adjusted the gaps on the door, tighten the bolts back to secure the tracks in place.
In this way, the tracks won’t be able to move.
Bottom line
After you have done the necessary steps above on DIY garage door tracks adjustment, your garage door should be moving without problems anymore.
The next time you encounter your tracks is giving you problems; you know how to address them right away.
However, there are times that after adjusting the tracks, the problem on your garage door still exist.
With this problem, it’s best to call a garage door repair company in Calgary.
You can call Gloss Garage Doors for a professional track adjustment if the steps above don’t work.
With us, we will identify the problems that are causing your track to get faulty, and we’ll give it a proper diagnosis.
Aside from repairs, we also provide garage door installation for residential and commercial garage doors.
Don’t hesitate to call us now and tell us about your garage door problems! We’ll fix it for you safely and efficiently!