Penthouse Bolt Replacement - video

[dorothyt7]

Thank you! I sincerely appreciate the expertise and skills to get that all fixed up. I’m very lucky to have you in the same town!

[bigriver]

Lucky indeed... moorefc to the rescue. Nice work!

[Sarah]

Hi Larrie,
We are using your technique to replace the bolts in out pent house.
We have the roof braced with 2x4 and 4x4, spring disengaged, the front back and middle bolt removed. The holes in the scissor bars are really far apart and we can't seem to get them aligned, unless the front bar is not in the channel. One hole is higher than the other and they have distance from front to back. We debated removing the top things that hold the bars to the roof, but are a little apprehensive since we don't know what is happening up there.
Do you have any advise.
Thanks,
Sarah

[Sarah]

Hi Boy Wonder,
We are using Larrie's technique to replace the bolts in our scissor bars.
We have the roof braced with 2x4 and 4x4, spring disengaged, the front back and middle bolt removed. The holes in the scissor bars are really far apart and we can't seem to get them aligned, unless the front bar is not in the channel. One hole is higher than the other and they have distance from front to back. We debated removing the top things that hold the bars to the roof, but are a little apprehensive since we don't know what is happening up there.
Do you have any advise.
Thanks,
Sarah

[boywonder]

You may not have the roof high enough.....how long/high are your corner prop 2x4's?

It can be quite hard to get the holes aligned although with everything that you have apart it shouldn't be too difficult.

[larrie]

I had the same problem, getting the holes realigned was real difficult for me to. I did not take the top bolts out but did release both ends on the bottom. Boy Wonders suggestion on raising the top a bit more may help. Sorry I cannot be more helpful.

[jage]

Can you leave the cross bar bolt loose so you have enough wiggle to move the bar back inside the channel? Raise a corner or end further to align? Get several friends to push pull and hang on the bars all at the same time? It seems like doing the end last would be the easiest as you might be able to lever it up over the channel using like a crowbar on the channel edge and pop it back it in after the cross bolt but it's really hard to say. And of course you still need to line it up.



I imagine it's very difficult to move the top to alter the positions once it's apart so sticking to the bars and tension might be better. Still mabye a blocked scissor jack inside to change the height of the wood braces by shimming them after jacking, the goal being to twist the top into aligning the bars without ever leaving the top support to the jack. You also might be able to do some bar to bar things with a ratchet strap and light tension. You don't want to bend anything but it should be moveable without too much force.



Regardless I'd manipulate height, front to back, loosen the bolts you've worked on to try to get slop, but I wouldn't touch the top end hardware. For one even if you did you wouldn't get that back aligned and the materials in the top are way less forgiving than the bars and channels on the bottom.


Post some pics if you're still stuck, like how it lines up with the end out of the channel and the cross bolt in.

[bigriver]

Same problem here. Turned out the corner braces I used were too long. By messing with them a bit to lower the corners slightly it lined right up.

[Sarah]

Thanks!
You were right. We had the roof braced across the ceiling towards the front. This morning I bought 2 more bottle jacks from Harbor Freight and we lifted the back corners.
It made all the difference. What a giant relief!
Thanks again,
Sarah.

[Sarah]

Thanks Jage,
You were right on. We originally braced and lifted the front ceiling. Today we put bottle jacks in both rear corners. We ended up lowering the front a little and raising the back and adjusting the different heights until they lined up. We also used a ratchet strap to nudge the back bar forward a little bit. I can't tell you what a relief it is to get them bolted back together and know we can do it again if we ABSOLUTELY must.
Sarah.