Better Beaters - Building Cars and Daily Drivers

 A car guys nightmare!  Part One.

This picture is from a Home Depot ad.

The garage door hinge broke while both of my cars were in the garage!

I've had one of the springs break before, this was before the springs had all the safety retention devices. The broken end shot off somewhere, it took me a while to find it, luckily the car wasn't inside at the time! It took a while to find the broken off end, which fortunately didn't do any damage.

The springs now have internal retaining devices, as well as retainers on the ends that connect to the hinge arms. I became aware that the spring was broken when the door wouldn't open. I've replaced several springs and a set of hinges over the years. Springs retain lots of stored energy, that's their thing. Old, wooden one piece garage doors are very, very, heavy, There is a lot of potential for severe injury working on these systems. They have to be treated with respect and a high level of caution and awareness. 

If you cruise around the less affluent parts of town you might notice a lot of old one piece garage doors that are hanging crooked when open, or they are bowed and sagging in the middle. Of course the ones that are really bad just remain closed all the time! Most of my neighbors have upgraded to the sectional roll up type of door. I haven't, so I guess that I'm the less affluent guy, living in the now more affluent neighborhood!

My garage door is the original plywood unit.  The driveway concrete is sectional and has buckled a bit right at the opening, so the door can't close completely. It closes, but the door hangs up a bit on the raised area of concrete and sticks when it opens. The door opens with a bit of a twisting motion. 

A couple of nights ago I backed my truck into the driveway to unload my Wife's newest antique cabinet find. I climbed into the bed to undo all the straps and moving blankets that I'd used for the move. It had been misting and I found the truck tailgate a bit slippery. As I stepped off, I grabbed the edge of the open door as a hand hold, and I let it support some of my weight as I jumped down. I heard an unusual metallic "pop" as I hit the ground. 

I thought that maybe something had fallen off a shelf, or maybe worse, that a spring had broken, but I didn't immediately see anything. My first concern was to get the cabinet, which was quite large, out of the truck and safely into the house before it started to rain. 

After I had that taken care of, I tried to close the garage door from the inside. The door lurched crookedly then stopped and reversed direction. Of course I tried a couple of times with the same result. Then I went to check for a broken spring. 

It gradually dawned on me that one of the hinge arms, the long one that the springs attach to, had broken off of the rail that bolts to the door. The big stud that was staked on the rail had broken free. It was standing straight up free, but with the end in contact with the surface of the door, and still holding it up!

Note that the long upper arm has the springs attached at one end The other end is attached to the door rail and it pivots on the hinge plate. This is the arm that provides the leverage force for the door to open. The lower arm acts as a guide in a parallelogram fashion, to move the door out into the proper position. It doesn't support the very much of the weight.

Here's the reason for the pop! You can see the rail broke
 and allowed the stud to pull free.

Not only did that chunk break off, 
look at that crack!

When the door is completely open, the door is parallel to the floor, more or less. The long arm is pointing straight up. Now I found it pointing straight up with the end in direct contact with the door surface. The door is also of course, directly over my two Mustangs!

It was already late, 9:00 pm. but I had to deal with this right away. I went out back to the backyard, to my lumber stash, looking in the dark for an 8 ft 2x4. I could only find a 6 ft. 2x2, but that would have to do. I wedged it just forward of the hinge pivot point, so that would support the open end of the door. I needed the end of the long arm to move to allow the door to swing down. I forced the loose end of the arm to the side to clear the door. My plan was to release the "traveler" of the power door opener, pull hard, and allow the door to swing down, supported by the intact hinge, hoping that it would pivot on the top of the 2x2. The traveler is the device that travels up and down on the motorized track. It snaps into a connection that attaches to the arm that connects to the garage door and provides the mechanical muscle to move the door. Everything was set, at least in my mind. The door should pivot off the 2x2 and swing closed.

Didn't happen!

As soon as I pulled on the door I realized my mistake. The lower arm couldn't support the weight of the door. The door swung out, then fell a couple of feet. It looked as though it was resting on the back of the roof and deck lid of my '96 Mustang!

Oh Jeez! What do I do now? I was too traumatized to take a picture of this situation.

The only course of action was to push on the top of the door from the inside, while I tried to pull it down. I was squeezed between the two cars with very little room, but I got it straightened out. It was down more or less, and I wasn't worried about someone breaking into my garage by lifting the door. Though I did engage the traveler back into position.

Then I went inside the house, had a late dinner and coffee, watched some TV, and tried to forget about it until tomorrow. 

I decided not to try to check for damage to my Mustang. I might sleep better not knowing!

I'll finish the job in the next post. Of course I didn't wait to finish the actual repair, which I completed the next day. I'm just splitting the reporting. 

As everyone knows by now, it's always one thing or another!