Cowboys & Gates

Ever since our gate was installed it's been a problem and unsurprisingly the company that installed it have long since gone bankrupt because they were a bunch of cowboys and were truly rubbish!

Recently, the gate got so bad at opening that it actually jammed open halfway on Monday. On inspection I discovered that the bearings in the front wheel were shot. In fact one bearing had totally disintegrated! (see left pic)

Having stripped it down and got the bearings out I dashed off to a local bearing supplier only to find on arriving at 3:01pm that they closed at 3pm. Nice work if you can get it! So having been back yesterday morning for replacement bearings I was able to refurbish the two wheels on the gate and get it working nicely. The gate now opens and closes a little bit quicker than before and is a lot quieter too.

The main issue turned out to be the spacers used between the bearings and the sides of the gate, basically, because they were smaller than the diameter of the bearing housing the wheels were free to jump off their bearings if they so chose, which seemingly they chose to do quite often. To add to the problems, the spacers were bits of PVC taken from conduit tubing for electric cables, so definitely not up to the job required of them. The company that installed it really were cowboys!

Now I have very large washers between the bearings and the replacement steel spacers meaning the bearings are permanently trapped inside the wheels, so there should be no more messing about. In fact, I would confidently state that the wheels are in a better state now than when they were first installed by the numpties who fitted the gate, and I'm willing to bet the bearings last a whole lot longer.

Almost got the front wheel out


Finally it's out


The rear wheel with the rubbish PVC spacers


New bearings with extra large washers to keep them inside the wheel


Finally the front wheel is refurbished and ready for action