Help with a garage door

[fRAiLtY]

Hi all, first post here. I moved into my new house in December and noticed the garage door is not straight. I've heard horror stories regarding the springs in garage doors so am reluctant to touch it until someone has had a look. I've attached some pictures of it from both the inside and the outside so you can see what I mean:

As you can see it doesn't hang very straight. Having never owned a garage before I don't really understand just by looking where any adjustments could be made. Currently I can't lock it properly as it's on the skew and the lock doesn't line up with the housing at the top!

Any advice is appreciated.

Cheers.

 

[keveljay]

I see what you mean!! - The door you have is a Henderson Merlin Canopy and is probably anything up to 40 years old, but if the mechanism is reasonably good it should be fixable. First thing to ascertain is whether the two brick pillars holding the frame are true (vertical), put your level on them. If they are, then its either the wooden sub-frame thats skewed or the door is attached wrong. In extreme cases, the integrity of the door canopy will have failed and become bendy, but its more likely to be frame.
To hold the spring tension so that you can work on any part of it, go inside and stand on a small steps so you are looking at the Right hand side cable bobbin. About an inch or so left of this there is a hole through the main axle bar. You need to tension the spring slightly with a spanner on the nut and put something like a small strong bolt through this hole so that the spring tension is held. With this in place, you can work on the door without losing spring tension. If the frame needs replacing, undo the screws holding the two brackets (one at either end) and , with help, lift the canopy away. Use 4 x 2 easy edge and 'let' the head into the uprights by half their width, then screw (or nail ) the three parts together before fixing the new frame to the brickwork.
If you dont feel confident doing this and re-hanging/re-aligning the door completely, its an easy job to re-position the striker catch that the pin wont engage into by undoing the 2 or 3 round headed screws and moving it across to meet the latch. Whatever you choose is not dear to do as long as the main door mechanism is working OK. Although Henderson went under some time ago, all spares are still available through Ebay. Good Luck matey

 

[crank39]

It might be me but the door looks level across the horizontal?

Nevertheless if you can open the door take a look at the cones at each end of the spring, one will be black and one will be white, check the cable has wound itself aound the cone properly, sometimes the cable can get kinked and can jump out of its grove in the cone and tie itself in knots

 

[masona]

It might be me but the door looks level across the horizontal?

Not sure because the inside right bricks pier looks higher than the left side therefore the top of the door is in line with the head frame causing it to be out of square, looking at the brickwork joints, it's not professional however can be corrected by re-adjusting the door position