Friday, May 29, 2020

Garage door hinge repair -- RH Bay, Left side door

There are three hinges per door.  These are the two upper hinges for the right hand bay, left door.
Only the middle hinge is really doing any work right now.  The upper hinge is completely loose (all five screws have come loose) and the bottom hinge is completely detached from the frame and missing the screws...


Bottom hinge...


All five of these old wood screws are loose and backed out.  The wood in the screw holes have deteriorated and the repeated stress has made them back out...
The five screws came out easily because they're loose.  They're #14 screws and appear to be about 1.5" long.  Will replace with 3" long screws.  There's some structure behind the door jamb so a longer screw has something to bite into.
Middle hinge screws.  They're mostly still relatively tight but would also benefit from the longer screws.


The bottom hinge door jamb wood has rotted away towards the bottom of where the hinge attaches.  Since this is the hinge with the least amount of stress on it, for now I'll just install the longer screws.  The old screws are gone!  (wonder when and where they went...).

The house/garage are 91 years old.  These screws have been "working" for a long time.  I guess it's not too surprising that they need some work...



The original screws removed from the top hinge...


Got these #14 x 3.5" screws from the local Ace hardware store (15 of them).


The original screw appears to be close to a #14 but slightly thicker.  (#16 is the next size up but it's much beefier and would not even fit through the holes in the hinge...)


The head on the new screws are slightly smaller (& Phillips instead of flat)


Maybe about 1.5 mm smaller head.  It's good for sitting flush to the hinge.
Because the screw is so long, I need an extra long drill bit to pre-drill the existing holes to accommodate the much longer screws.  I happen to have this extra long drill bit with an adjustable stop (with a spring loaded tapered head).  I adjusted it so that the hole will be drilled almost all the way for the new screws except for the last 1/4" or so.  I would like the screw to really bite into the last 360 degree turn.  I'll drill the first hole & see if it goes it tight or not...


The last 1/4" of the drill bit is narrower (like a pilot section before the full diameter of the drill bit...).
Top hinge.  All the screws went in tight (the drill bit and hole depth was just right).

Prior to putting all the screws in the top hinge, the door was shimmed up off the ground so that once the hinges are tight, the door won't drag on the ground.

This is the middle hinge.  Cleaned the paint out of one of the screws & removed it.  This screw was loose.

Replaced the one screw with the new longer screw.  It went in nice and tight.  Will replace the other four screws too.
All the screws were replaced on the middle hinge & they all went in nice and tight.

Installed one new long screw on the bottom hinge.  It also went in nice and tight.  Will install the other four screws to stabilize this hinge.  It doesn't really see any stress.  The top hing sees the most stress followed by the middle hinge.  This bottom hinge is more of a locator than load bearing...




Could only put three of the five screws in.  The three went in tight but the wood behind the bottom two screw holes is too damaged to hold the new screws.  This will still work & may even last another 90 years...

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