Grease

Get a can of Valvoline automotive grease at your local parts store. About $3.00 and will work fine. It's in a dark blue can.

Next time, don't use WD-40. Something like Tri-Flow is a much better spray-on lubricant, though this isn't a particularly good application for spray-on.

Yeah, the WD-40 was a band-aid and easy to apply when I had to get the door open in the winter. About the spray-on, do you mean stuff that can be sprayed isn't so good for this application?

-John O

Pretty much.

If you clean it and grease it well, it should go for

Spray-on lubricants don't have the body for this kind of application, and in the case of WD-40, the solvent action of the kerosene will wash away the grease, making things worse in the long run. At least Tri-Flow doesn't seem to have a kerosene base, and lasts a lot longer.

I have a power garage door with the folding metal panels and I've had good luck lubing the panel pivet points with Tri-Flow. Haven't had to touch the chain drive yet, but probably would use motor- cycle chain lub on it.

I'm too late, since you've got it cleaned now, so I'd just do as Jim suggested and get a can of grease at the parts store and go for it. If you're hesitant to use just "any" grease, your local garage door specialist can probably tell you if one kind's better than others, particularly if plastic parts are involved.

But if you run into something like this in the future and can't or don't want to play with taking apart and cleaning, just remember grease is a mixture of soap and oil. The soap isn't like what you wash with, it's basically a sponge that holds the oil (lots more to it, but that's enough for here.) So when it "dries" out it means the oil's gone. Get a little oil can with some motor oil (not important what kind or grade) and put a few drops of oil on the dried greased areas. The grease will rejuvenate itself to a degree as the oil is soaked in (might take a coupla apps if it's really dry.) This is kinda what was happening with the WD-40, except the stuff evaporates out so fast it's worthless for this app. This fix isn't perfect, but beats the heck out of disassembling some things!

Also, you asked about spray products: the big problem I've seen with them is they're usually not up to the high contact pressures of things like your screw mechanism even while they're wet, and then evaporate too quickly to last, as you've seen. They're great for convenient "quick fixes" and cleaning, but after that, they kinda lose out IME.

Good luck,

Rick

Absolutely! The other problem with the WD-40 was it caused the stuff to loosen up too much and drip on the garage floor. Seems to be graphite-based, and on the bottom of shoes it makes a mess that's hard to clean.

Anyway, thanks for the tips, guys. I appreciate it.

-John O

Lubriplate Low Temp grease is what's recommended to use. Most other greases will thicken up too much in cold weather & not allow the screw to turn inside the rail. Most mfg's suggest you grease it once a year.

Doordoc