Flatlanding door tracks wrong for 8 years until a fire alarm went off

I used to always run a flat file straight across the door track headers thinking it was the best way to level them. Then last October during a fire drill at the Metropolitan building on 3rd Street, the doors jammed and I had to crawl up to see what happened. Turns out I was creating a slight concave dip at the center every time, which threw off the hanger alignment. A senior mechanic named Gary pulled me aside and showed me how he uses a straightedge and a mill file at an angle to keep the contact points true. Has anyone else found out their go-to method was actually making things worse down the line?

2 comments

2 Comments

davis.ivan8d ago

Yeah, I've been there. It's humbling when you realize you've been doing it wrong that long.

barbarac678d ago

Tossed my old flat file method right after reading this. Gary sounds like a real one for showing you that trick. I bet half the building doors in this city are jacked up the same way you were doing them. It's wild how one little angle change can mess up everything for years and nobody catches it. Definitely going to try that straightedge trick on my next job.