Haha. I just got home and showered. LOOOONG day. Started at 9am, made a new cable for the winch. Installed. the first crank started to bend the bolt holding a pulley that straightend the line into the winch.
Went to town, got a longer 1/2 lag bolt and installed. Cranked the door open about 1.5 ft. I was BEAT. Took a break. Cranked some more. Hauled the bandsaw outside and cut a few pallet rack uprights down and put bandsaw away. Closed door. For 20 minutes. I definitely need an electric winch. this setup is going to kill me. but the door opens. I'll add photos later. I'm too tired now.
After i got the pallet rack cut, i started up the truck, loaded it up with scaffold, and the trailer with pallet rack. Then went over to my buddy's house in Brighton and gave him a hand. He's just built a pole barn and borrowing my stuff to get the inside finished and lit up. Then we fixed his furnace. He then had to go to a concert in Ann Arbor, so i left there and went to the north side of Detroit (well, quite a bit north of there) and picked up a lift. It's a project though, not usable at the moment. the price was right though. I have the 4 poster that will get installed first. that one is usable as soon as i get it installed. Which depends on the blasted door opening. My welding all held, i had the door open about 3.5 ft. Nothing bent, nothing made creaky noises, and the sightline inspection of the door hinges at the top as the door was open didn't reveal anything out of place or bending. I ran force and moment calculations on the door assuming about 600 lbs total weight and various open points and the hinge loading rises VERY quickly to about 200 lbs each and pretty much levels off after that. I think i'm in the clear. BUT it's not usable at this point with the winch i have. Just tooo hard to crank for that long. Soooo, i think i need to just bite the bullet and engineer the opener.
The plan for the opener is lift straps on 2 locations in line with the steel door framework, wound up on a 1in shaft, driven by chain from a worm gearbox driven by a motor. I have the bearings for the shaft already, i'll need to purchase shafting, pulleys, gearbox and motor. But at this point, i can crank the door open enough to get weather stripping on the door panels so the building will be tight. so not a total fail.