adele,
WD40 is probably one of the greatest inventions known to man with the
exception of duct tape. However, as good as it is, it can be overused.
I
think that is what happened in this case. You probably could have
gotten buy with just small amount or a few drops of oil on each hinge
and then all you would have to do to get it to work in would have been
to move the door back and forth several times.
In most cases the
reason the door wants to close by itself is because of the house
shifting over time. The other problem could be that the door is out of
square, the wall it was installed in was not leveled up properly or
even the floor could be out of level.
That being said, now here are some suggestions on how to solve the problem.
The
first thing that you will need to do is pull the hinge pins out of the
hinges and take the door down. Leave each section of the hinges
attached to the door. You will need to wipe off all of the WD40 from
the hinge pins and use a household cleaner that has a degreaser to
clean the hinge pins throughly.
Next take either a cotton swab
or a thin stick or pencil with some cheese clothe wrapped around it and
clean out all of the WD40 from inside the hinge pin openings. Make sure
you get it all if you can.
Now, put the door back on it's hinges
and see how the door responds. If it does not close on it's own
anymore, but still has a squeak, try to figure out which hinge the
squeak is coming from and then put one drop of oil at the top of the
hinge pin and then move the door back and forth several times until the
squeak stops. You may have to add another drop or two until the squeak
stops.
Now that you have solved the squeaking, what do you do if
the door still wants to close on it's own? Well, there is something you
can try that may work.
Pull out the hinge pin from the center
hinge, or if you only have two hinges on the door, pull out the bottom
hinge. This next part will be a little tricky because you are going to
need to bend the hinge pin slightly. If you have a vice, the put the
hinge pin in the vice and let about half of it hang out. Make sure the
vice is tight and then take a hammer and hit the end of the hinge pin
either towards you or away from you, not up or down, until you see it
start to bend. You don't want to bend it too much because you may not
be able to get it to fit back into the hinge.
A second method
would be to take a pair of vice grips and grip them tight onto the
hinge and then twist them around the hinge pin which should put some
score marks into the hinge pin. The score marks should cause the pin to
have a couple of raised areas on it.
So now in either case, put
the pin back into the hinge and is should stiffen up the closing action
of the door. You may need to put a couple of drops of oil in the hinges
and again move the door back an forth to work it in.
Try these methods and it should help.
Rick Maselli
Founder of Showroom411.com