Garage door opener rail bending occurs when you haven’t installed the rail properly. Another conclusion may be that the garage door arm is at an odd angle. So naturally, the door arm is away from the door when you close it. And that’s the correct position. But when you haven’t installed it correctly, the garage opener rail bends when closing from stress on the rail.

Usually, you have to hold button to open garage door. If that doesn’t work smoothly, there is a problem with it. To stop the rail of your garage door bending when closing, you may need to replace the garage door rails. In other cases, the entire door. We recommend calling the mechanics in, but if you are confident, we won’t deprive you of some helpful DIY tips. So keep reading to learn all about this problem. 

Rail Length for Garage Door Opener

For accurate installation of your garage door opener, you require exact measurements of your garage door rails. Or else, the garage door bending at top when closing or garage door shifted to one side phenomenon will persist. 

Are garage door opener rails universal? Only sometimes. For a single light chain drive opener, the garage door tracks will need to be 116″, 128″, and 152″ in length. These lengths will also be the same for single and double-light chain drive openers. Some of these symptoms may indicate that replacing the rail on your garage door is time.

Garage Door Opener Rail Angles:

• Lower angle: Suitable for most, and thus the manual supplements this. 
• Horizontal: Difficult pulling, hence would cause a lot of pressure on the motor. 
• Higher angle: Similar to horizontal angle. It creates difficulty in pulling and strains the engine. 

How you know you need Garage Door Opener Rail Support and how to fix them:

1. Garage Door Screeching

You will sometimes notice your garage door creating a scraping or screeching noise. This is the aftermath of damaged garage door rails. Broken door rails create more friction with the garage door rail, making loud noises. Why does my garage door get stuck when opening? It looks like your opener was virtually flush with the garage door rather than at an angle. When you shut the door, it will operate jerkily and loudly because of it.

Another cause that may lead to door scraping is when the garage door opener track bent. You can replace the garage door rails or repair the door tracks to fix the related problems.

You may reduce the power head’s height by purchasing some angle iron from a hardware shop.

Does a garage door opener rail need to be level? Yes, the opener rail must be no more than 2 inches from the top of the door’s upper portion in a fully opened position.

2. Garage Door doesn’t Open or Close Smoothly

Your garage door rails will face wear and tear if the garage door rail flexing when opening persists. We know this is the result of the wrong installation. You will also need help to open and close the garage door. We can deduce that the garage door opener stuck in closed position, and its movement is clogged.

Changing the garage door’s movement may be the answer. Adjusting the garage door rails is the first order of business. And your garage door rail needs a full-on replacement if they are damaged.

3. Garage Door tearing down

You don’t need any more understanding that the garage door rail is broken if the garage door starts to topple over or fall. When a lot of time has passed, and the rails have gone above their warranty and timeline, they will begin to wear. 

How do you know that they are wearing? Upon wearing, they bend till they break. And while bending, it isn’t out of the natural for the rails to poke out of the wall. To fix this problem, you shouldn’t. Call over a mechanic or technician to deal with the track rails. 

DIY Fixes

If you are confident about fixing the garage door opener rail bending yourself, then here are some techniques you can carry out: 

1. Close the door and check the points on either side where the rail attaches.
2. Open the garage door once more to measure the distance between the points. Does garage door opener rail need to be level? The main goal is to notice how much space they need to maintain parallelism, so ‘level’ is what we need.
3. Some placements on either end of the steel brackets with bolts create a correct alignment. 
4. Try opening and closing the garage door again. If it seems easy now, you can assume you have completed repairing your garage door opener rail bending.

Other Fixes

The garage door opener rail bending has another fix. You can use a rubber cork to close the door conveniently. 

FAQ

Verdict

Having gone through these problems, you are now aware of the garage door opener rail bending causes. You probably know how to fix them, too, by now.

But if you have no training or previous experience on this task, it would be foolhardy to act macho here. So don’t be the daredevil and call your nearest technician.