I have a closet that has one of those folding two-panel doors. It’s solidly constructed – at least the panels are, if not the actual sliding bits. This weekend, I did a bit of home repair for the first time…
Y’see, the door’s front top peg had fallen out of the bushing and jammed rather firmly between the track and the molding hiding the track.
So I took a screwdriver to it, figuring I could just loosen the screw and jiggle the door back into place. Unfortunately, that just resulted in the door falling off the bottom plate thinger and nearly out of the adjustable top pivot.
The door must weigh almost half as much as I do, which isn’t hard when one’s as little as I am. In between bouts of shoving and jiggling, much profanity related to the door’s antecedents ensued.
Then the top pivot jammed just when I’d gotten the peg back into the bushing and was trying to adjust it so that the door could unfold flat in the doorway. The pliers came out, as did the WD-40. More cursing. Screws were dropped. More door-handling as various bits of the door fell out of alignment at different times.
Finally, the hammer came out.
After a few minutes of (delicate) pounding at various points and further shoving, the door meekly slid back into place, and further testing confirmed that this wasn’t an illusion. I had conquered the door.
In some cases, percussive maintenance does work. 