Intel's Ronler Acres Plant

Silicon Forest
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Monday, April 7, 2008

Garage Door Problem


I stopped over at my friend Jack's house today. He was futzing with his garage door. It was being uncooperative. It finally jammed up good about a foot from being closed. So we went to lunch.

When we got back we set to investigating this recalcitrant mechanism. We found a number of small things wrong: one of the wood panels was seperating, there was a nut that wasn't tightened all the way, there were a couple of shiny spots on the track where something had been rubbing. But we could not find why it was getting so jammed up. When it was open, it was fine, but the farther it got to being closed, the more difficult it got to move, until when it was about a foot from the ground it was like it was locked up completely. The wheels were all free to move, the door was not rubbing on the frame. It was like it was just suspended there in space, hanging on some giant nail. I finally got up on a ladder and looked at one of the pulleys that supported the cable and noticed that it was all catty wampus. Not a good sign. Turns out the bearings in these pulleys were shot. New pulleys and bearing should put it back in working order.

Update December 2016 replaced missing picture.

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