Hello from Oregon! Garage Door reinforcement question

[Lowry]

I have a Wayne Dalton lightweight insulated steel door with rolled inner edges.
I'm trying to figure out how to attach a reinforcement bracket to the top panel for a garage door opener, but I can't figure out how to attach the arm because the center of the garage door is faced with a thin plastic sheet to cover the insulation. Obviously can't attach anything to that and there's NO help on the Wayne Dalton site, but the standard generic reinforcement bars look like they would have to attach to the u strut at the top (with the upper roll behind that, so would be going through 2 flimsy sheets of metal), and the bottom would have to attach to the bottom roll (1 flimsy sheet of metal). It's a 12 ft wide door with no center brace for the hinges. It seems to me attaching a bracket to the rolled edges would just eventually V out where it's attached. Am I overthinking this?

 

[larry_g]

Welcome to the group. I would suggest that you pose your question over in the general garage forum as not all members visit the introductions forum.

lg
no neat sig line

 

[1/2 Cup]

Welcome to the GJ enjoy.

 

[blackbriar51]

Lowry,
Best to have pictures when you are describing something like this , but i believe i understand what you are saying here.

What we used to do is build a "T" bar or Draw Bar.

Using a piece of Flex-Angle or commonly referred to as pre-punch, span the horizontal length of your top door section with this and fasten it in with TEK screws.

Then take a short piece and span from that top piece vertically down to your center hinge and that's it.

Make sure that before you fasten that 18" or so vertical piece, that you forty-five degree cut the bottom protruding corner off for when the sections fold and so that no one slices their head open on that, file / grind everything smooth and rounded.

You now have a strong facility to mount your operator pick-up arm too.

You can obtain the pre-punch from your local Door company or Lowes or Home Depot.

To make it even easier you can just go to your local Garage Door Company and tell them that you need a top strut for the width of your door and a reinforcement bracket to attach and reinforce the center stile.

 

[Lowry]

Hi Blackbriar. Thank you for the info. I did attach photos so don't know why they didn't show up. I have no center stile in this door, and the only place to attach is on the rolls of steel on the inside of the door. Let me go find the photos and repost in general garage forum. Hopefully someone will have had the same issue.

 

[Lowry]

Look up;
liftmaster 8500
It will work perfectly with this set up and comes with an automatic electric deadbolt.

I can't help with the door problem as a door...but I can show you the opener that will solve your problem.

Well, had I known about this unit before I bought and installed my Chamberlain belt drive, I'd be using it. It sounds like a better system all around!

 

[Glenn M.]

Welcome to the GJ from VA!

 

[blackbriar51]

Lowry, If your door is a torsion unit you can mount the opener off to one stile and it should work fine, but if it is a stretch spring unit forget it. You would probably have to turn the reverse sensitivity all the way down in order for it to work. List what size door it is in width and height and how many "middle stiles" it has, i'm either guessing a 9x7 with two stiles or an odd number panel arrangement on a 16x7 like five panels across with four stiles.