I happened to be out of the house on Saturday morning around 8:30am. That’s not really unusual except this time I was actually going somewhere with a purpose. Normally I’m out that early to avoid things like making breakfast, doing laundry or the honey-do lists my wife so delightfully hands me on Friday nights. Today I’m headed to the big Orange home improvement store to look at some new flooring and some new bathroom fixtures, my wife was not aware. With my steaming hot cup of joe securely in the cup holder, cup number 2, I decide to take the back roads.
Let me preface this with the information that both of my two boys are grown now with one in college and the other just a year away. I happen to drive past a local elementary school and as I cruised by I can see out my driver’s side window a normally empty field full of what looks to me like kindergartners. Bright orange cones are spread out on rectangles and fluorescent colored uniforms are bounding around in synchronized unison.
Little soccer players in training. I remember those days where an all volunteer group of moms and dads assembling teams of, what seems to be too many players, coming out on early fall mornings for some fresh air and exercise. When I was coaching our main goal was to get everybody moving in the right direction which can be quite a feat with 5-6 year olds. Happy days indeed. The kids never wanted it to end and we did our best to squeeze every second out of the time allotted us each Saturday morning.
Your garage door has its own little guys too. The rollers connect the door panels to the tracks and if you take just a few moments of your day and coach them a little bit once or twice a year they’ll all keep going in the same direction for you. Get a little spray can of lithium grease, with a straw attachment if possible, and give each of them just a little pulse of the grease right in the bearings. This should take no more than 10 minutes including running the door up and down a few times to work in the newly greased rollers.
Here are a couple of helpful tips.
Do Not Grease the track of the door. It should be clean and dry. If it’s not it, the grease will catch all the little dust particles the wind brings in and will wear out the rollers and track well before their time.
Do Not use a WD40 type lubricant. These will have the opposite effect you are looking for as they actually dissolve grease. Get a can of lithium grease which any hardware or department store should carry.
Hope this finds you well and if you’re lucky enough to have one of the Saturday morning warriors enjoy it to the fullest. This retired soccer coach misses those days.
BobbyG