How to · 15 minutes
How to lubricate a garage door
Twice a year, with a garage door lubricant or white lithium grease — never WD-40, which is a solvent and strips what is there. Five places take it: the hinges, the roller stems, the springs, the bearing plates and the top of the rail. The track itself gets wiped clean and nothing else.
What you need
- Garage door lubricant or white lithium spray
- A rag
- A stepladder
6 steps
Doing it
- Close the door and unplug the opener.
- Wipe the inside of both tracks with a dry rag.The track is a path, not a bearing. Grease there collects grit and grinds the rollers.
- Spray each hinge where the two halves pivot.That pin is where most of the squeak comes from.
- Spray the roller stems, and the bearings on steel rollers.Nylon rollers with sealed bearings need the stem only — spraying the wheel just makes it slip.
- Spray the springs along their length, and the bearing plates each end of the bar.A dry spring rusts from the inside of the coil and fails years early. In coastal Florida this is the single best thing you can do for it.
- Spray the top of the opener rail and wipe the excess. Plug it back in and run it twice.
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