How To Redesign Panel Garage Gate Mechanism

[Krzysztof]

The challenge I have is the panel gate which is a standard one with its rails coming over the height of the gate (above the parked car on ground level). I'm planning to mount two post lift but with the car at the level 1 (lifted) the gate will not be possible to be fully opened allowing another car to part below (ground level).

I'm wondering whether it is possible to change the rails to come up with some angle (not perpendicular as it is now), to be able to open it up once car is up on the lift.

Not sure if you know what I mean by that. The roof is not flat so the gate's panels should go along with the shape of the roof.

Other location of gate springs and maybe additional locks to keep the gate opened up safely would be needed. Standardly spring of the gate is mounted on the axis and located in the corner just above the upper edge). For sure I'm not considering completely new gate as it would not be possible from many reasons. The panel gate need to stay as is (with the part of vertical rails but mechanism can be changed further up as not visible.

I was trying to find such a solution/modification but with no success.

Have you faced such redesigned mechanism or do you have an idea how to make it properly?

Sorry for lack of pictures. Maybe some will appear further in time but I believe you know how panel lifter gate is made as this is very popular design, next to cheaper single wing gate used commonly worldwide.

 

[amg5872]

I've wondered exactly this same thing (if I'm understanding your issue correctly). My garage has very tall ceilings but my panel garage door follows the tracks, which go perpendicular over the car at about 8 feet above the ground or so. I would think that a good overhead door company could do it but I haven't done anything more than wondered about it.

 

[Krzysztof]

Here is a picture showing how the gate typically is made

 

[Krzysztof]

And some visualization how it would be nice to have it redone:

 

[boonies]

I suspect that the issue will be the spring tension required to lift the door the distance required, and safely maintain its raised position.

 

[Krzysztof]

Yes. True and that is "The Challenge"

It is possible to buy horizontal springs - rather than single rolling one (used in Hoermann's gates) to help with the spaceing above gate and lifting force required (I would start with fully "manual" design) and rails (spare parts) to adopt.

I could live with specific locks on both sides to lock the gate at the upper position with the spring only helping to move the gate up.

Have Anyone here seen such or similar rework? Designing by experimenting is possible but it is wise to ask for Other's opinion and experience.

 

[boonies]

@Krzysztof , here are a couple of articles, it looks like it has been done.

convert door from horizontal track to incline track

I need some help with my garage door. I have a 9' wide x 7' tall standard door that was installed with a horizontal track (90 degrees) - I want to convert it to an incline track (hopefully 45degrees) to match my roof pitch (12/12) (see pics) I had one of the local garage door dealers (CHI...

www.garagejournal.com

My story: Modifying garage door to follow roof pitch

Just reporting my story on modifying my regular garage door (regular as in the standard style where there is a 90 degree bend at a height roughly the same as the door height itself) so that it will be a door that travels up and ROUGHLY "follows the pitch of the garage". I use quotes there...

www.garagejournal.com

 

[Ohmess]

A buddy of mine had the same issue you have. He acquired a larger curved section that made the 90 degree turn on a longer arc. This longer arc puts the door up about 18" higher.

 

[Krzysztof]

@Krzysztof , here are a couple of articles, it looks like it has been done.

Thank you so much for the articles. It would be difficult for me to find them and you've just hit the point with the practical realizations of the idea I was thinking of. I need to read all carefully and check how to implement that.

@Ohmess
Thanks as well!
It is the idea worth considering in case (from any reason) I will not be able to move on with the initial idea. For sure it is the cheapest was to go with and in some specific cases could adjust the height to a level the gate will not be in collision with the car on the lift.

 

[Markos]

Those GJ threads seem helpful. As long as you can keep your torsion bar in the same spot, the hardest part of this job would be getting the track angle right.

The cables attach to the bottom do the door, and they do all of the lifting when the door is in the closed position. So where the door ends up shouldn’t really matter, other than the springs will be under more load while up.

Installers don’t like to veer outside of normal with installs. I had to buy my doors 6 months in advance. I really wanted to have them installed, but they won’t order the doors for you unless they measure your garage. I told them “I’ll give you the dimensions, the garage doesn’t exist!”. Nope! Needless to say I had to install the tracks, door, and opener for a 16’ door and an 8’ door. Probably a good thing because I have the door about 2” of clearance from the ceiling versus the advised 12”.

I would replace the torsion spring setup and get a slightly heavier unti. You have several spring winds of flexibility on the springs, so they all overlap a bit in terms of capabilities. For instance, my springs were like 11 winds but less than 13 or something like that.

As others mentioned, I would have a lock for the door while in a constant “up” position. If the cable snaps the door will be moving quick on the way down. The tracks already have holes in them so a clevis pin or a bolt would do it.

 

[JFENG]

No need for anything fancy. No changes to my existing door. All we did was add a vertical extension to the existing tracks (note wall bracket in pic), which raises the horizontal track to within a few inches of the ceiling. The extension pieces were mounted to give an angle to the setup to clear the roller spring. The track stops are set to keep the bottom of the raised door bottom just below the door opening. For me, this provided significant extra headroom, in my case just enough to store my tallest car (E9) still have 78” underneath for walk around space. This did necessitate removing the power opener. But the adjusted spring makes it quite easy to open/close manually.

The track itself is quite cheap as are the butt joint plates I did have to adjust the roller spring to provide greater lifting tension.

Make sure you know what you are doing if attempting to adjust the roller spring. It can hurt you if you screw up.

Total cost of parts was just a few hundred because I did not have a torsion spring (had linear type). Wig you already have a torsion/roller spring, you can reuse it and the parts cost should be under $100.

This should be relatively cheap for any competent garage door specialist. This type of work is pretty common in my area, where garage ceilings tend to be quite high and people use lifts to store their classic cars.

John

 

[jefflit]

They make taller tracks for 5 panel doors. Beware. If you try to use them with a normal 4 panel door you will experience difficulties with spring selection and tension because the spring must pull straight up for a long distance before the door begins to flatten out horizontally, lessening the load.

 

[jefflit]

Oh, and you'd need to use a jack shaft opener for 4 panels. You can you a traditional opener if you have 5 panels.

 

[coupe2800cs]

You want to take the 90" radius, and cut bunch of small pie sliced notches in it on the outer radius, and then weld the cuts back together. Since it's galvanized metal you will need to remove the galvanized coating with a grinder, lightly grind it back. Weld in well vented are preferably outside... Not sure they sell specific 19' to 37.5' degree tracks or not, but your likely going to need a little more spring tension to hold the door all the way up once open at that angle.

 

[coupe2800cs]

 

[Ohmess]

My neighbor with the longer 90 degree arc has a sidewinder type garage opener.

 

[JFENG]

weld the cuts back together

Why? I don’t think this needs to be that complex.

Look at my photo.

The bottom of the 90 deg segment was cut to match the angle of the slanted extension piece. Simple track splice plates are used to join the segments (need to drill 2 holes). Everything is also well attached to the wall/ceiling. This modification is consistent with how the original is put together. Note the black rustoleum paint on the cut end of the curved track to prevent corrosion.

And yes, the slanted extension piece could have also been cut (see gap in my driest post), but this section is vertical so the gap is inconsequential.

 

[JFENG]

sidewinder type garage opener.

If you have space this is the way to go. I didn’t have the space.

 

[rsporsche]

if you have height to do the angled door, have you given consideration to having longer vertical tracks before the door turns horizontal?

 

[eriknetherlands]

I just swapped mine for a roll type door; it just curls up in a 40x40cm box.

Erik.