Fix Your Bifold Door

Use a repair bracket to repair a broken door pivot

By the experts at The Family Handyman

From The Family Handyman

Free yourself of the hassles of a broken bifold door faster than a fish fleeing a net. Often, heavily used bifold doors wobble and don’t work because the top pivot has broken loose. We stumbled upon a neat repair gizmo called “The Bracket” (800-343-3275) that reinforces the pivot. It costs about $3 at hardware stores. To install it, grab the closed bifold door with both hands and lift up while you pull the bottom pivot free of the floor bracket. (To make reinstallation easier, first mark where the bottom pin sits in the floor bracket.) Set the door on a workbench or on sawhorses and remove the pivot (Photo 1). After you secure “The Bracket” (Photo 2), rehang the door by aligning the top pivot with its bracket, lifting the door and setting the bottom pivot back into the floor bracket.

Click image to enlarge.
1. Remove the bifold door and pull the top pivot from the top edge.

2. Center the reinforcing plate over the pivot hole with the setscrew hole pointing toward the center of the door. Lightly tap the plate in place with a hammer. Secure it with the enclosed setscrew, and reinsert the pivot.