Tractors are trapped...

Good Morning, the pole building we store our tractors in has (6) 12' wide x 14' high doors. Three of them are located on the back of the building and three of them are located on the front, this allows for a pull through situation. The building is about 8 years old now. Over the last year or so the (3) garage doors on the front of the building get stuck. When you un latch the manual slide latch the doors will not move up. If you push down and jiggle the door on the side opposite of the latch it will sometimes free itself and start going right up. Once the doors have been operated once that day, they go up and down without issue all day long. Once you latch them for the night they will be stuck the next morning. We have been up and down extension ladders many times trying to see the problem but can not come up with anything. We thought they were getting stuck under the header but that is not occurring. We put a spacer under the track where it attaches to the door frame thinking it was jamming but that did not solve anything. The tension on these front doors is a bit strong so that they go up to give the full 14' of opening. There is a slight grade coming into these doors and it allows for proper clearances. Could latching only one side of the door at night be allowing door to bind/rack with the extra tension? Thanks for the input.







This post was edited by Christopher S. on 10/03/2022 at 07:18 am.

Have you tried lubricating all moving parts? Know there will be a lot of them.

Verify the the two springs are wound equally tight.

Unless the bar on top is 2 piece (sure doesn't look like it), individual spring winds won't make a difference.

My doors did something similar and I found they were binding on the outside rubber seals on each side.

I spray lubricant the side rollers wheels on both side with approved garage door spray about every 3 months but more often if reallll dusty. Wingnut

The change in temp between day and night and morning can push and pull on the latch making it get off center. When they stick, see if giving it a gentle pry sideways (toward the side with the latch) after unlatching. I like motorcycle chain Lube spray for door rollers, and PTFE dry spray for rubber seals. Jim

If you need to push down on the door to get it closed, and backing off the spring causes the door to not stay all the way up, something is not right with the springs, they are too short.

Not sure if that is contributing to the problem, it could be, but it will shorten the life of the springs. When they fail, look up a spring calculator and get the correct springs. Longer springs with smaller wire last longer than short springs with heavy wire.

The upper tracks should be ever so slightly up hill to keep tension on the cables when the door is all the way open. If too much incline it will cause the door to not want to stay fully open.

When properly balanced the door should stay fully closed without the latch holding it down, and fully open without the cables going slack or trying to roll back down.

Do the doors stay centered between the tracks? They should. If the floor is unlevel, the tracks unlevel or not parallel, the doors will tend to migrate to one side and bind. The tracks need to be level and parallel regardless of the level and square of the door frame. If correcting the track doesn't fix it or is not practical, you can add shims to the bottom roller to help keep the door centered.

I 2nd Flembo's comment, the vinyl weather seal on the outside stop, rub some paraffin on the door where the vinyl seal contacts the door !

(quoted from post at 10:58:27 10/03/22) Unless the bar on top is 2 piece (sure doesn't look like it), individual spring winds won't make a difference.

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K, so on that type, how about cable tension on left vs right side?

Are the bottom rollers going too far down, and catching on the bottom end of the track just a bit? I can't tell by the photos if that's your problem or not. It was mine until I added about an inch of track to the bottom.

I have problems with one overhead door at my city home and with one overhead door on a pole barn at my country home. I believe that the core issue with the door at my city home is the garage floor is not level at the door opening (it is lower at one side of the door than the other.) When the opener is adjusted to seal the door at the lower side, something must twist out of alignment and jam the door somehow.

The door tracks on my problem pole barn door are lag screwed to the sides of posts. After more than a decade of living with a door which would bind before it was fully raised, I spent several hours looking at everything. I discovered that the post sides to which the tracks are attached are NOT parallel and in the same plane. This causes the wheels on one side of the door to bind in the door tracks as the door is raised. I would imagine that the proper fix would be to completely remove the door and track, shim everything until it is parallel in the same plane, then reinstall the door. Since handling an 18' wide door by myself would be difficult, I loosened the lag screws hold the track on one side, and shimmed one side of the track to make it closer to being parallel with the other side. It now works fairly well, but is better or worse some days than others. I suspect that temperature and/or humidity changes are causing things to expand, shrink, or twist to some degree.

swag... one side latch is letting the other side go up a bit and then its in a bind.. especially since you said the springs are set tight in the down position. That explains why it runs fine the rest of the day till you lock the one side again. A double sided lock might help, or a handle to step down on,, as you unlock it, to center the door would help. the door step handle and lock both need to be in the center of the door for this to happen, not located on one side.

The coil spring at the top is rusty. Spray it good with W/D 40. It is not slipping between the coils. Been there done that.

With the door down use a C clamp on the track to hold the door in a latched position on both side not tight to the roller but just at it. If it works the next morning then you found your problem. The C clamp or those welding style vise grips will let the door float just a bit and hold it down against unwanted intruders for the night. After all they don't know which night you did it.

We use a dry lube Silicone or Graphite lube on the rollers and counterbalance on our roll up door trailers. Spray springs, rollers and track liberally and roll up and down a few times. lubrication should be done on a regular basis. The oil based lubes will attract dirt.

Have you called the installer? At the very least they should be able to offer you some hints. It may be worth a service call to, as fooling with those springs is not something you want to do without proper equipment and training. Yeah yeah, I know some of you "manly men" grab a couple of tire irons and go at it, but that's just Step #1 to getting your summer teeth.

I would bet the top of the door is set tight enough that it is catching under the header. back the adjustment off on the top roller and I think your problem will go away.