Tinley Park, IL · Same-day service
The Right Grease, in the Right Half Dozen Places
There is a can of penetrating spray on a shelf in most garages in Tinley Park, and it is the wrong thing to point at a garage door. It is a water-displacing solvent. It frees a seized part briefly, then thins out and carries away the grease doing the real work. A door treated with it runs beautifully for a week and worse than before within a month.
Serving Tinley Park
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A lubrication and tune-up visit puts the correct product on the parts that want it, deliberately leaves alone the parts that do not, and takes the noise out of a door that has been running dry for a couple of years.
Where lubricant goes, and where it must not
On the list: the pivot points of every hinge, the roller stems and their bearings, the end bearing plates and the centre bearing on the torsion shaft, the springs as a light film, the rail on a chain or screw-drive opener, and the lock bar if the door still has one. A silicone or lithium-based garage door product suits all of those, applied thinly and cycled in.
Off the list, and this is what people get wrong: the tracks. A track is not a bearing, it is a running surface for the rollers. Grease in there collects dirt, turns to paste and gives the wheels something to slide on instead of turn in. Tracks want wiping out with a rag and nothing else. Nylon roller wheels are the same story, the stem gets lubricated and the wheel does not.
Why springs rust here in particular
A torsion spring sits directly above where the car parks. All winter it is under a fine mist of salted slush thrown off the wheels and dripping off the bodywork, in a garage that is not heated and never really dries out. The salt settles between the coils, and rust between coils does two separate things: it eats section out of the wire, and it makes the coils grind against each other instead of sliding, which loads the steel unevenly.
A thin film of the right lubricant stops both. It is one of the simplest things anybody can do for a door in this climate, and the step most often missed, because a spring looks like a part you are not supposed to touch.
Old grease, cold mornings and a labouring opener
Grease does not stay grease. It oxidises, thickens and dries to a varnish on the bearing surfaces, and then the first cold morning arrives and the door barely wants to move. What the household notices is the opener straining, so the opener gets the blame. Cleaning the old product off the stems and pivots before anything new goes on is half the value of the job.
So the visit runs in that order: wipe the tracks down, clean the pivots and stems, apply the correct lubricant sparingly, cycle the door several times to work it through, then check the balance by hand and reset the opener force if it has been compensating for the drag. Ten careful minutes of that beats a whole can sprayed at the door.
Other work we do in Tinley Park
- Torsion Springs
- Extension Springs
- Roller Repair
- Panel Replacement
- Smart Openers
- Commercial
- Custom Doors
- Maintenance
- Safety Inspection
- Spring Replacement
- Opener Repair
- Installation
- Emergency Service
- Cable Repair
- Track Repair
Lubrication in nearby towns
More on garage door lubrication, or everything we cover in Tinley Park.
Questions
Tinley Park questions about this job
Which product should I keep in the garage for this?
One sold for garage doors, silicone or lithium based, in a can with a straw. Keep the penetrating oil for seized bolts and away from the door. Grease in a tub is fine on bearings but messy on hinges.
How often does it need doing in this climate?
Twice a year suits it: once before winter, and once after it when the salt has stopped coming in on the cars. If the door starts talking to you before that, it is telling the truth.
I lubricated everything and it is still noisy. Now what?
Then the noise is wear rather than friction. A flat-spotted roller, play in a hinge, a loose track bracket or a bearing already scored will keep making noise whatever you spray at them. That is a parts job, and it is usually a small one.
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