Garage Door Problems

The other day I went out to get my car out of the garage. I hit the button on the remote and the garage door did nothing. I could hear the electric motor turning but the door didn’t even wiggle. For problems like this there is a manual chain fall to open the door. Open the little door on the side of the garage to get access to the chain fall. Work the chain fall (that’s mechanical speak for pulling on the chain) to open the door and nothing happened. This is a big problem.

There is no way into the garage except through the garage door. The garage door is an old metal roll up door. It is not one of those tin foil doors that everyone buys nowadays. This door was installed before tin foil doors were common. This door is like one you would find installed in an industrial building. Some of us take are garages seriously.

To open the garage door in this situation you have to get out the inch and a quarter by inch and a quarter crow bar that has been flattened to a chisel point on one end (and not stored in the garage). Jam the chisel point under the bottom of the door, put a piece of two by four under the crow bar and pry the door up. Slip another piece of two by four under the door and repeat the prying up on the other side of the door. Of course I has been cleaning up and thrown away all the scraps of two by four I had laying around.

It’s hot and muggy. I have an appointment coming up. Run around, find another two by four in back yard. Saw two by four up into eight inch lengths for cribbing. That’s what the prying and placing block under something is called.

Try to crawl under door. Don’t fit and I’ve lost weight. Go find more two by fours. Saw up more cribbing.

Get under door. Climb up to the garage door opener. Find that a bushing has worn out. I had inspected the opener just a couple of days ago. The bushing behind a big pulley so I missed it. There is a lot of tension on the shaft that the  bushing supports so the pulley and shaft didn’t wiggle when I tried to move it a couple of days ago.

Today I got the pulley off with the help of a friend. Pulled the remains of the bushing out. Went down to the bearing store (yes there are such things) and ordered a replacement. The bearing store has been turned into an office with almost no stock. Thank you MBA’s (if the stock don’t move get rid of it). If I had known that I would have ordered it on line and maybe get it faster. I need the bushing now, not tomorrow not the day after. If you don’t have what the customer wants he will go on line and get it just as fast and cheaper. If you run a production line and you have a dozen paid people standing around doing nothing does the MBA pay for the down time or for the fine the state lays on the company for sending the people home suddenly without pay?

Write on, draw on.  Professor Voltage.