How to Fix Garage Door Tension
Garage doors usually operate with a couple of springs for tension and some pulleys and cables. After a period of time the cables may very well stretch a little or the springs may lose some tension. You can tighten these up and make it work as good as new providing something is not broken.
Items Needed:
- Pliers
- Step ladder
- Vice grips or locking pliers
- Disconnect the garage door opener if you have one. Pulling the handle on the opener will disengage the motor from the cable puller.
- Manually open the garage door. This is to take the tension off the springs.
- Use your vice grips or locking pliers to place underneath the rollers in the door tracks holding it open and preventing it from coming back down.
- Where the track for the door makes its bend near the pulleys is where the cables are hooked to the door. The cable is simply hooked into a device that moves between the mounting bracket to loosen and tighten the cable.
- Get on your stepladder and check this bracket for looseness. You may be able to move it further back into the holes and tighten the cable solving your problem.
- Use the pliers or an open-end wrench if that doesn’t correct the tightness enough and where the cable goes through the bracket you will see two nuts. Just loosen those nuts and pull more cable through the bracket. Make sure that you do the same exact amount on the other side of the door so it won’t be lopsided or not close properly.
- Remove the stepladder now and place the garage door opener back into the motor housing so your automatic opener will work the door again and you are done.