How to Tune Up Sliding Doors

Sliding doors should glide easily and close evenly against a jamb. This
is true of an exterior slider and its screen door as well as of interior
bypassing sliders and pocket doors. Here's how to handle adjustments.

Difficulty: Moderately challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Stiff Brush Or Sponge
• Touch-up Paint And Supplies
• Soap
• Lubricant
• Nail Set
• Soap
• Block Of Wood
• Block Of Wood
• Hacksaw Blade
• Hammer
• Hammer
• Open-ended Wrench
• Pry Bar
• Screwdriver
• Small Wood Block Or Wooden Wedge

Exterior sliders

1. Remove the door to repair a bent track and to inspect, lubricate and clean the rollers in the underside. Slide the operating panel into a half-open position. From indoors, lift the door up into the top track as far as it will go. Tilt the bottom out toward you and lower the door to the floor.

2. 

   If the outside edge of the track is bent inward and rubbing against the door, tap it out with a block of wood and hammer. If it needs additional straightening, cut a block of wood to fit tightly in the channel and then hammer another block of wood against the outside face of the track (see A).

3. Clean the tracks with a stiff brush or sponge and some soap and water, then clean and lubricate the rollers located in the bottom of the door. (You shouldn't oil or otherwise lubricate the lower track of a sliding door. It's unnecessary, and the lubricant collects dirt.)

4. Reinstall the door panel. With the door almost closed, look for an even gap between the door and the jamb. Adjust if needed.

5. 

   To adjust one side of the door up or down as needed, insert a pry bar under the end of the door. Placing a small wood block under the bar for leverage, lift the door up while you turn the adjustment screw (see B), or hold the door up with a wedge.

6. Locate the wheel-height adjustment screws in the end (or sometimes the face) of the bottom rail. Turn these clockwise or counterclockwise to lower or raise the wheel, which in turn will align the door with the jamb.

Interior bypassing closet doors

7. With the closet light on and a screwdriver in hand, go inside the closet and close the door to observe how it meets the jamb.

8. Turn the adjusting screw, located on the back of each roller bracket, until you've aligned the door and jamb. Some cam-type assemblies adjust as you turn the screw. With other types, loosening the screw allows you to raise or lower the door via a slot in the hardware, then lock it into place by retightening the screw. You adjust still others by turning a hanger bolt from the trolley with an open-ended wrench (see "Pocket doors," below).

9. If the door meets the jamb evenly but rubs against the carpet, or conversely if the bottom of the door is too high to engage the floor guides, raise or lower both sides equally to achieve the desired height.

Pocket doors

10. The door brackets on the top of the door hook onto hanger bolts suspended from a pair of two- or four-wheel trolleys that ride in the track. To access the hanger bolt for adjustment, remove the stop and the split (two-piece) head jamb on one side of the door. This can be quite tricky or easy, depending on how the door fastens together. If you see screws, remove them.

11. If you don't see any screws, carefully pry off the stop and look again for screws that may secure the split jamb to the frame of the pocket door. (Look for putty indentations that might indicate the location of the screws.)

12. If the casing is nailed to the jamb, it shouldn't be. Pry the pieces apart enough to cut the nails with a hacksaw blade, or drive each nail through the casing with a nail set and hammer.

13. Use an open-ended wrench to turn the hanger bolt and level the door. (If you don't have the thin open-ended wrench required to adjust the locknut on a four-wheel trolley, you can lift the door off the trolley, adjust the nut and rehang it. Test and repeat as needed.)

14. When you've properly adjusted the door, tighten the locknut, then reinstall the trim and touch up the paint as needed.

Tips & Warnings

• Adjusting the right side of a sliding door up or the left side down produces the same results. Decide whether you want the door higher or lower, and let that determine how you level it. For a narrow gap across the top, you'll want it higher, but to engage a floor guide, you'll want it lower.
• Removing and reinstalling a heavy glass sliding-door panel is awkward at best. Mishandling one may result in broken toes or a broken door. It's much easier and safer to have one person on each end for this task.
• Place a throw or other padding on the floor where you plan to rest a glass sliding panel you've removed.
• Avoid laying a glass door flat, which can damage the insulated glass seal. Stand it on its end or edge.