Found a trick for leveling elevator doors without pulling the whole track

Been fighting a set of doors on an Otis unit in a 12-story building downtown for weeks. Kept getting drift on the bottom guide shoe until a coworker told me to try using a small feeler gauge to shim the roller bracket gap instead of loosening the whole track. Worked on the first try and saved me at least 45 minutes of readjusting. Any of you guys use feeler gauges for door alignment or is there a better method?

2 comments

2 Comments

laura_white991mo ago

Actually I've found that using feeler gauges on door tracks can mask a bigger problem sometimes. If you're shimming the roller bracket on an Otis unit that's been in service for a while, you might be compensating for worn out guide shoes or a bent door panel without realizing it. I had this happen on a high rise where we kept shimming things for weeks until the door finally jammed completely and we had to replace the whole panel. The drift you were getting could also be from a loose hanger bracket above, not the track itself. Did you check the hanger bolts before you started shimming? Sometimes those back off over time and cause the same symptoms.

dakotal161mo ago

On an old Otis I fixed last year the hanger bolts had backed off enough that the door lifted a quarter inch when it opened. Felt like a track issue but it was just the brackets shifting. I torqued them to 15 ft-lbs and that drift went away immediately. Saved me from chasing a phantom alignment for another week.