Let us say that you are locked out of your house. There is no way in except for the garage. But, alas! For some reason, the garage door is not even working at all. It will not open and let you in the house anyhow! This can be a huge problem.
Even if you are not in that kind of predicament, you will still face a huge problem if your garage door does not work.
There are many reasons why a garage door does not work. It may not move because of the trolley carriage. What to do if you find your garage door trolley not catching? Let us find out through this article.
What Is a Trolley Carriage of a Garage Door?
Before you get into fixing a broken trolley carriage, you need to understand what a trolley carriage even is and what it does in regards to the garage door.
The trolley carriage is a part of the garage door. On a garage door opener, a trolley is a rail that joins the garage door opener to the garage door. The trolley carriage is situated on the above-mentioned rail. It uses a chain, belt, or cable so that it can lower the garage door open or pull the garage door closed.
There are a few moving parts in the garage door that help the door do its job. Among them, the trolley carriage is quite possibly the most important moving part of the garage door.
The emergency release is situated in the trolley carriage, which is why it is so essential to a garage door. Without it, the garage door will not open up or close shut.
You can even manually pull the garage door open or close it by using the rope that is always hanging from the trolley carriage.
Garage Door Trolley Not Catching
How to Tell If the Trolley Carriage Is Broken?
When the trolley carriage is broken, you will find some obvious signs of it if you look for it. You cannot know for sure that the garage door is not working because of the trolley carriage. So, you need to confirm it. That is why it is important to know what you should look for.
The most significant sign is that the trolley carriage moves when you try to open the garage door, but the door does not open up at all. This sign tells you that somehow the trolley carriage is broken.
If the trolley carriage of your garage door opener is, in fact, broken, you need to replace it with a completely new trolley carriage. There is usually no other way than to buy a new one.
Luckily for garage owners, a replacement for most of the garage door openers’ trolley carriage is easy to find, and they would cost you not more than about 20 dollars to 40 dollars. Although, the cost of the trolley carriage will depend on the model.
If you are a handyman, then the replacement job can be done by you alone. It is moderately easy to get this replacement work done.
You only need a few of your garage door parts and some simple household equipment to fix this problem by replacing the trolley carriage.
It is a completely safe job to do on your own, and it will take no more than about 30 minutes. It is safe because you already have a broken trolley carriage, there is no way for the cable or chain to slip and harm you in any way possible, and the door is also already down.
Preparations for the Repairment
Before you get into the work, you need to keep everything in check and organize a few things. Let us get to know how to prepare before you get to repairing the trolley carriage.
The first thing that you have to do is to get the garage door to be in a down position. It is most likely that the garage door is already in such a position. But, you have to make sure as it is important for your own safety for the door to be down before you start to disengage it. Otherwise, it could get very dangerous very quickly for you.
There is going to be a red cord attached to the carriage and the opener. It is the emergency ripcord. You need to first find it, then pull on that emergency ripcord.
This emergency ripcord is what connects the trolley carriage to the garage door opener. You do not have to worry about reinstalling it because it is not a sophisticated task. So, do not worry about that because it reconnects automatically when you raise the garage door with the automatic opener.
The last step in the preparation stage is to pull on the emergency release towards the garage door. What this will do is disengage the motor and the door.
Replace the Trolley Carriage
Now that you have gone through the preparation stage, it will be a very easy task to replace the trolley carriage.
First, you need to start by camping the chain or the cable of the trolley carriage to the rail before you go ahead and do anything else.
This will make sure that the chain is situated in its right place on the sprocket. That will save you a lot of time in the future when you need to adjust the chain’s tension.
After you are done securing the chain or the cable, you need to separate the two ends from the trolley carriage.
Now, you need to disengage the header from the rail and move the rail to the side.
This is where you get to install the new trolley. All you have to do is slide the old one off and slide the new trolley on.
Now, you have to reattach the carriage and the chain. Then adjust the chain’s tension tightly but do not overexert.
Lastly, reverse what pulling the emergency ripcord did by replacing the trolley on the garage door’s belt drive. Now, you are all set to try and open the garage door as the trolley issue is solved.
If the garage door does not open still, then there is a problem with another part of the garage door, not the trolley carriage.
Conclusion
If you find your garage door trolley not catching, it means you need to fix the problem by replacing the trolley carriage with an entirely new one. Otherwise, you will be left with a garage door that does not open no matter what else you do. That can ruin your day. So, I hope the information in this article helped you.
