Sliding Door Repair: Roller Replacement Made Easy

A sliding glass door.

If your sliding door is sticking, or opening in a jarring fashion you may just need to replace the rollers. A sliding door repair is much cheaper than replacing the entire door. This article will talk you through what you need to fix it yourself.

Step 1 - Remove the Door

The first thing you’ll need to do is remove the door. It’s best to check that you have enough room to do this without adjusting the rollers. Just lift up on the door a little bit and see how much room you will have.

So long as you have the room, go ahead and lift the door out by pushing up on the door and pulling the bottom of the door out. If you don’t have enough room you can adjust the rollers by locating the screws on the track near the rollers. Just screw them counter-clockwise until you have the room needed.

Step 2 - Find the Roller Type

Now that the door is off the track, you can see what style roller you have. Depending on the roller type there may be a few ways to remove them. Usually you will find a mounting screw located near the spring mechanism. If the screw isn’t there, check just above the screws used to adjust the rollers.

Some doors will have a slotted area where the screw is sitting. Some doors use just one screw for both adjusting and mounting. If this is the case you just need to remove the screw entirely.

Once you remove the mounting screws you can just pull the old rollers out using a pair of pliers. Some of them may just pop out with a screwdriver.

Now that you have the rollers, you can go to your local hardware store to find the same rollers to replace them with. This is the easiest method so you don’t have to make several trips later if you have the wrong rollers.

Step 3 - Install New Rollers

You will install the new rollers just as you removed the old ones. Remember you may need to adjust the roller height again. Do not add any lubricant to the rollers. This isn’t necessary and will just attract dirt.

Step 4 - Check the Track

Since you already have the door off the track, now is a good time to check the tracking itself. Ensure it’s still even. If you need to fix or hammer out part of the track (if it’s metal) you may as well do that while the door is off.

Step 5 - Hang the Door

You are now ready to hang the door back up again. If you need to adjust the roller height to allow enough room for this, just use the same method as earlier when you removed your door.

Slide the door a few times to make sure it’s working properly.

If the door is still jarring, skipping, or sticking then it’s more than likely the track itself that needs to be replaced.