Avenger
Veteran Member
When we moved into our new house, about a year ago now, it came with a driveway gate. It's a nice gate, but it didn't have an opener - an "operator" - on it. I called around and got some quotes to get one installed. It was very expensive, but worth it. Having a gate that stay open all the time, because everyone is too lazy to open and close it manually, is like not having a gate at all. So we spent the money and got one installed. That was last fall. It has been great! That is, until winter hit.
The first snows we got drifted up against the gate, and the safety sensors in the operator wouldn't allow the gate to open, trapping my wife and I, at 6am, as we try to leave for work. took me several minutes getting it shoveled out. The problem is the gate is too low.
As you can see, the bottom of the gate is only 2 inches off the ground. The prevailing wind pushes snow up against the gate as it acts like a snow fence. When the snow isn't blowing, it doesn't take much to trap the gate. Our solution last winter was to keep the open.
I vowed to raise the gate last winter, and the time finally came this weekend. My friend and I got to work. The obvious plan is to lift the gate, cut the hinges off the post, raise it up, and weld them back onto the post. The only problem is a welder that would reach. I don't have generator or a welder/generator combo. So, my initial plan to was take the gate off the hinges, drive it to the shop, move the hinges on the gate down about 6 inches, drive the gate back to the road, and reinstall it on the hinges that were left on the post. This would raise it up. But that would be a major pain. I thought about renting a generator/welder.
No one, and I mean NO ONE in the area has one to rent. The only place that had one, said it was down for maintenance. I have a welder, a really good one, I just need a ton of power for it, several hundred yards from where its plugs in at. Or I could rent a generator! I did that. I rented the biggest generator the local rental place had. Only problem with it, it only outputs 30amps. Not ideal, but should run my welder.
We lifted the gate off the hinges using the bucket. I figured it would be best to spread the distance and lift it evenly. Once it came off, for some unknown reason, we decided to move it out of the way. We figured we could simply cut the hinges off the post, raise them up 6 inches and re-weld them. We were wrong. OH! Were we wrong! We measured, we used levels and squares, and measuring tapes, and straight edges... we could not get them aligned!
The problem was that the post has settled and is no longer plumb. It wasn't just off level in one direction, its off on both x and y. We thought about straightening the post, since the gate is off, but the problem with that is the block wall. The actual post is INSIDE the block post. We would have to demo the entire post and reset the metal post inside, then build the wall up again. Thats a much bigger project than we were willing to tackle. So after placing and welding the bottom sections of the hinges in place 3 separate times, and cutting them off 3 separate times, we finally got it aligned and mostly level.
I put the 'crane' on the FEL and picked it up from the middle of the gate, using it as a fulcrum. We used a jack on the latch side to lift and lower it on the hinge side. We pressed the gate up against the latch and aligned the hinges.
This was one of those projects I dreaded doing, only because I've never done it before, and I have to have help. My friend and I work very well together, but sometimes we have differences of opinions. But in the end, we got it done. The generator didn't do so well. We kept tripping the breaker as the welder was calling for much more power that it was willing to provide. The welds look like a 4 year old did them! But they should hold. After grinding them off a few times, we can see just how well they penetrated, not great but good enough.
The first snows we got drifted up against the gate, and the safety sensors in the operator wouldn't allow the gate to open, trapping my wife and I, at 6am, as we try to leave for work. took me several minutes getting it shoveled out. The problem is the gate is too low.
As you can see, the bottom of the gate is only 2 inches off the ground. The prevailing wind pushes snow up against the gate as it acts like a snow fence. When the snow isn't blowing, it doesn't take much to trap the gate. Our solution last winter was to keep the open.
I vowed to raise the gate last winter, and the time finally came this weekend. My friend and I got to work. The obvious plan is to lift the gate, cut the hinges off the post, raise it up, and weld them back onto the post. The only problem is a welder that would reach. I don't have generator or a welder/generator combo. So, my initial plan to was take the gate off the hinges, drive it to the shop, move the hinges on the gate down about 6 inches, drive the gate back to the road, and reinstall it on the hinges that were left on the post. This would raise it up. But that would be a major pain. I thought about renting a generator/welder.
No one, and I mean NO ONE in the area has one to rent. The only place that had one, said it was down for maintenance. I have a welder, a really good one, I just need a ton of power for it, several hundred yards from where its plugs in at. Or I could rent a generator! I did that. I rented the biggest generator the local rental place had. Only problem with it, it only outputs 30amps. Not ideal, but should run my welder.
We lifted the gate off the hinges using the bucket. I figured it would be best to spread the distance and lift it evenly. Once it came off, for some unknown reason, we decided to move it out of the way. We figured we could simply cut the hinges off the post, raise them up 6 inches and re-weld them. We were wrong. OH! Were we wrong! We measured, we used levels and squares, and measuring tapes, and straight edges... we could not get them aligned!
The problem was that the post has settled and is no longer plumb. It wasn't just off level in one direction, its off on both x and y. We thought about straightening the post, since the gate is off, but the problem with that is the block wall. The actual post is INSIDE the block post. We would have to demo the entire post and reset the metal post inside, then build the wall up again. Thats a much bigger project than we were willing to tackle. So after placing and welding the bottom sections of the hinges in place 3 separate times, and cutting them off 3 separate times, we finally got it aligned and mostly level.
I put the 'crane' on the FEL and picked it up from the middle of the gate, using it as a fulcrum. We used a jack on the latch side to lift and lower it on the hinge side. We pressed the gate up against the latch and aligned the hinges.
This was one of those projects I dreaded doing, only because I've never done it before, and I have to have help. My friend and I work very well together, but sometimes we have differences of opinions. But in the end, we got it done. The generator didn't do so well. We kept tripping the breaker as the welder was calling for much more power that it was willing to provide. The welds look like a 4 year old did them! But they should hold. After grinding them off a few times, we can see just how well they penetrated, not great but good enough.
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