If your garage door is not opening and closing smoothly, there can be many different causes but the garage door tracks are one common cause of garage door problems. Whether you have a one piece or sectional garage door, your overhead garage door is equipped with rollers that move along metal tracks on either side of the door as the door opens and closes.
These rollers can sometimes become jammed or damaged, but a track misalignment is a more common source of door opening and closing problems. The door tracks have to be properly aligned for the door to open and close smoothly. Over time, the tracks can shift out of alignment if the hardware holding the track sections together loosens or if the track mounting brackets separate from the wall. Also, a track can be bent or damaged by an impact with a car.
To check for track problems, inspect the tracks with the door closed. Look for loose hardware that connect the track sections together, connect the track sections to the mounting brackets, and hold the mounting brackets to the wall. If you find loose hardware, you can tighten everything back up, but the tracks may be out of alignment so try to align the tracks with each other and vertically along the wall as you tighten the hardware.
If everything seems tight, the tracks themselves may have been bent or twisted, usually due to being hit by a vehicle. Sight along the tracks to see if they are straight and bend smoothly throughout the curved section. You may be able to straighten a slightly bent or twisted track section, but in most cases you will be better off installing a new section of track.
Properly aligning garage door tracks is more complicated than it looks so don’t be disappointed if you have trouble getting the tracks properly aligned. Your local garage door service company will be happy to send a trained garage door technician to your home to handle any garage door repair issues.
