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Garage doors across 32 Dallas Fort Worth cities

(469) 281-7750

What we work on

Garage door cable and track repair

A door hanging crooked, off its rail, or with a cable coiled at the bottom bracket is carrying its load somewhere it was not designed to. That is not a door to keep operating.

(469) 281-7750 Request a callback

A door off its track can fall. Do not run the opener to try to correct it, and keep people and vehicles out from under it until it is secured.

What garage door cable and track repair actually involves

When a garage door comes off its track it usually looks worse than it is, but it should not be forced back into place. Cables under tension, a bent rail and a door hanging at an angle add up to a situation where pushing on the wrong part makes it drop.

Cables and track fail for a handful of reasons: a vehicle bumping the door, a spring breaking and letting one side drop, rollers that seized and dragged the door out of alignment, or simple corrosion at the bottom bracket where water sits. The repair depends on which of those happened. A door knocked off track by a car often needs the rail straightened or replaced along with the cables, while a cable that frayed on a rusted drum needs the drum addressed or it will chew through the new cable too.

Signs you are dealing with this

  • The door is visibly hanging out of the track on one side
  • A cable is loose, frayed, or coiled off the drum
  • The door binds, catches or scrapes at the same point every time
  • Rollers are jumping out of the rail at the curve
  • The rail has a visible bend or a gap at a joint

What we check on arrival

  • Both lift cables end to end, including where they wrap the drums
  • Vertical and horizontal track for bends, spread and loose fasteners
  • Roller stems and bearings on every hinge position
  • Bottom bracket condition, which is under permanent tension
  • Whether a spring failure caused the derailment in the first place

How it goes

How a visit runs

Four steps, in this order, every time.

  1. 01

    Secure the door first

    Before anything is adjusted the door gets clamped and supported. Nothing is unbolted while the weight of the door can shift.

  2. 02

    Find the root cause

    A door does not usually leave its track on its own. We identify what pushed it there so the same thing does not happen again next month.

  3. 03

    Repair or replace the affected parts

    Cables, rollers, hinges, brackets and track sections are replaced as needed rather than bent back into an approximation of straight.

  4. 04

    Realign and test under load

    The door goes back on track, gets aligned, and runs several full cycles while we watch the roller travel at every position.

Typical range

$150 to $450

Resetting a door on its track with new rollers is at the low end. Replacing cables, drums and a bent rail section is at the high end.

This is a range, not a quote. The exact price comes after we see the door and you approve it before any work starts. Call (469) 281-7750 and describe what it is doing.

Before we get there

A door off its track can fall. Do not run the opener to try to correct it, and keep people and vehicles out from under it until it is secured.

What people get wrong about this

The door is getting loud, so the opener must be wearing out.

Noise almost always comes from the parts that roll and pivot, not from the motor. Steel rollers with worn bearings rumble. Dry hinges squeak. Loose track bolts rattle and the sound carries through the wall into whatever room sits above or beside the garage. A door that has become gradually louder over a year or two is describing worn hardware, and hardware is far cheaper than a motor.

What to do: Look at the rollers. If the wheels are steel and the bearings are visible and dry, that is your noise. Nylon rollers and a proper lubrication are usually the whole fix.

The tracks are squeaking, so they need grease.

Tracks are the one part of a garage door that should be left clean and dry. They are a guide, not a bearing surface. Grease on a track collects dust and grit, and that mixture wears the rollers faster than no lubricant at all. What actually wants lubrication is the roller bearings, the hinges, the springs and the bearing plates, using a garage door lubricant rather than a general purpose spray.

What to do: Wipe the tracks with a dry cloth. Lubricate the rollers, hinges and springs instead, roughly twice a year.

The door is stuck, so I should pull the red cord and force it.

The red release handle disconnects the door from the opener trolley. If the door is closed, that is a safe thing to do. If the door is part way or fully open and the spring that was holding it has broken, releasing the trolley removes the last thing keeping it up, and a 200 pound door can come down in about a second. This is the single most common way people get hurt by a garage door.

What to do: Only pull the release when the door is all the way down. If it is stuck part way open, leave it, keep people and cars out from under it, and call.

How this varies across the metroplex

  • A 16 foot door runs a cable and a drum at each end of the torsion shaft, and both drums have to hold the same number of wraps. If one set screw slips, that side rises faster, the door racks in the opening, and a roller leaves the track. Correcting it means resetting the wrap count on both drums, since the track itself is often undamaged.
  • A cable coiled loose at the bottom bracket lost tension while the door was moving. That happens when the door lands on an obstruction and one side keeps unwinding, or when a spring breaks mid travel. Rewinding the same cable ignores why it came off, since a scored drum or a bent bottom bracket will unseat it again.
  • Steel rollers with exposed bearings were standard on older installations and wear into an oval, which lets the stem drop in the track. Nylon rollers on sealed bearings run quieter and hold shape longer. Roller stems also bend when a door is forced against an obstruction, and a bent stem walks the roller out of the track on the next cycle.
  • Insulated sections weigh more than single skin panels, and that weight passes through the hinges and roller stems into the track. Hinge holes elongate first, which lets a section sag and pulls the roller toward the edge of the track. Track flag brackets on the jamb take the same load and loosen over time in wood framing.
  • Single layer steel sections dent easily, and a dent along the bottom edge or a stile can be enough to bind a roller. Light gauge track bends rather than absorbing a hit, so a vehicle bumping the door often leaves the panel and the vertical track out of line. Straightening a kinked track with pliers leaves a high spot that catches every cycle.
  • Most one piece tilt up doors swing out on jamb mounted pivot hardware instead of riding rollers through a curved track. There is no lift cable and drum in the sectional sense. When one binds or sits crooked in the opening, the wear is in the pivot points and the arm alignment, and parts for this hardware are not interchangeable with sectional track.
  • A wood overlay or custom door puts two to three times the weight of a steel door on the same hardware. Heavier doors call for a wider and thicker gauge track with rollers carrying more ball bearings in the race. Cables are sized to the load as well, and a cable specified for a light steel door frays early where it wraps the drum.
  • An 8 foot door has less width to absorb a difference between the two sides, so a cable slipping off one drum tips it in the opening within a cycle or two. Single doors often sit in a narrower bay with the vertical track close to a side wall, which limits how far a bent track can be pulled back before the roller path changes.

Coverage

Cables and track across the metroplex

Pick a city for what the door population there means for this job.

Get a price

Tell us what the door is doing

If the door is stuck open or will not close, call. That is a security problem and the phone is faster than anything else on this page.

(469) 281-7750

A person answers 7am to 11pm.

The noise it makes and when it started narrows the cause more than you would think.

Door stuck open or will not close? Call (469) 281-7750 rather than waiting on a reply.

Questions

Garage door cable and track repair, asked and answered

What does garage door cable and track repair cost?

Resetting a door on its track with new rollers is at the low end. Replacing cables, drums and a bent rail section is at the high end. Typical Dallas Fort Worth market range for this work. It is not a quote. The on site estimate is free and that is the number that counts.

How long does garage door cable and track repair take?

Most track and cable work is one to two hours. Cables and track fail for a handful of reasons: a vehicle bumping the door, a spring breaking and letting one side drop, rollers that seized and dragged the door out of alignment, or simple corrosion at the bottom bracket where water sits.

Is the work guaranteed?

Parts and labour carry a 5 year warranty. The price is agreed before any work starts, and the on site estimate is free.

Where do you cover?

32 cities across the Dallas Fort Worth metroplex, worked from Coppell. Dallas, Tarrant, Denton and Collin Counties.

Does it change depending on the door?

A 16 foot door runs a cable and a drum at each end of the torsion shaft, and both drums have to hold the same number of wraps. If one set screw slips, that side rises faster, the door racks in the opening, and a roller leaves the track. Correcting it means resetting the wrap count on both drums, since the track itself is often undamaged. A cable coiled loose at the bottom bracket lost tension while the door was moving. That happens when the door lands on an obstruction and one side keeps unwinding, or when a spring breaks mid travel. Rewinding the same cable ignores why it came off, since a scored drum or a bent bottom bracket will unseat it again.

Get it fixed

Need garage door cable and track repair?

Tell us what the door is doing. The estimate on site is free.

(469) 281-7750 Request a callback
Call (469) 281-7750