How to Adjust Garage Door Tracks

Garage doors roll up and down when opening and closing, respectively.

Guiding the door are the tracks on both sides of the garage door.

Without proper adjustment, the garage doors may not open or close properly.

If worse comes to worst, the door may come out of track causing damage to the tracks.

Adjusting the tracks correctly will prevent future problems with the garage door.

In this article, we will show you the ways on how to adjust garage door tracks.

Ways to Adjust the Tracks

Adjustment of the garage door tracks can be done in two ways.

For the rollers to work properly, one thing we can do is to align the track with the door itself.

Another way is to adjust the track in such a way that the door and the weatherstripping become aligned.

Adjusting Garage Door Track to the Rollers

The following are steps in adjusting the track to the rollers:

1. First, work with garage door down.
2. One at a time, loosen the tracks.
3. Loosen the lag bolts. Those are the ones that hold the track to the jamb.
4. Slide the bracket until the correct distance is achieved.
5. Loosen one or more clips if needed.
6. Position the track where it needs to be.
7. Tighten the clips with the track in the right place.
8. Ensure that the lag bolts connecting the frame and the clips are tight.

Adjusting the garage door track margins

To keep proper alignment of the track with the door itself, we will need to adjust the margins of the garage door.

We can establish the proper placement of the tracks when the door is down on the ground.

What we want is for the door and the tracks to be parallel.

Additionally, we want to achieve a consistent margin for the door’s full height.

The steps below will help guide in the proper adjustment of the garage door track margins:

1. Using a wrench, loosen the bolt.
2. Adjust the bracket in the desired direction. For binding brackets, we need to loosen two brackets at a time.
3. Do adjustments to the brackets on both sides of the door until we come up with consistent margins of the garage door track.

Adjusting the Overhead Track

There is only one point for adjustment on the garage door track’s overhead portion.

The distance between the door and the overhead track must be equal to its distance from the wall track.

Again, adjusting the tracks requires working with the door down or closed.

Slots can be found in the brackets holding the track up.

Additional holes can also be found in them.

To perform the adjustment, we need to move the track.

Below are the steps in adjusting the overhead track:

1. If using new holes is necessary, remove the bolts. Otherwise, just loosen them.
2. Move the track’s end closer to the door or far away from it, whichever is necessary. Proper distance between the track and the door is vital. Making the track too far away from the door can cause falling of the door. Making the track very close to the door can cause binding of the door.
3. Move the end of the track in small increments and try the door with each move until the desired adjustment is achieved.
4. Tighten the bolts and check proper adjustment by operating the garage door.

Aligning the Garage Door Track with the Weatherstripping

Sometimes daylight and cold air come in the garage through the door tracks.

This means that we need to adjust the track to the weatherstripping.

Follow the steps below to perform the adjustment.

1. Loosen the bolts.
2. Move the track so that it fits snugly into the framing.
3. Tighten the bolts back up.
4. Check the alignment of the tracks together with operation of the door.

If everything is doing good, then we are done.

Otherwise, we repeat the steps.

Adjusting the garage door tracks may sound difficult.

But now that we have outlined the steps on how to adjust garage door tracks, we know that it is not that complicated.

If we are not confident enough to do the job by ourselves, it is always best to call the help of experienced garage door professionals.