I’ve only seen this a few times in my career. I’ll bet it was messy.
Thank you to Keith Krienke of the University of Calgary for today’s Wordless Wednesday post!
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WW: Casting Fail
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Lori,
that is the most extreme break I have seen yet with a door closer,
I have seen airline cracks and dented and heard of dented spring tubes, but this?? looks like it broke in half!! wonder if this one was result of a hard strike with a hammer or maybe bad batch of closers that day this one was made, I can see from the photo that the crack happened at the middle of the pinion shaft as I can see the upper and lower pinion shaft threads, metal fatigue may been the cause of this one.
worst I have seen with this one (not an Alle product) worst I have seen with C/R (brand) was a broken cover, as the cover is really weak at pinion shaft area, easily snaps in half.
ohh yes, I can imagine it was a big mess when it snapped, no real way to fix that big hole, not even with a welder or JB cold weld, best to replace that closer with another new one or upgrade to the LCN 1460.
-Jess the door closer doctor
Wow, I’ve never seen this before. Wondering if severe cold had an effect, maybe heating and cooling of the cast-iron shell?
Looks like a C/R DC3200.
I know Allegion may not like to hear this, but I really like that closer.
Had to have been dropped from a great height, or a bad casting. I used thousands of those closers in a facility I worked in for almost thirty years and never saw one fail like that.
The old C/R 500 closers would break apart like that when broken gear teeth would get caught up in the rack & pinion meeting point.
Not sure I believe that picture – how come the (I presume) deep-drawn aluminium cover has failed as well – and so cleanly. Where did all the oil go? Some more pictures from different angles might alleviate my scepticism. (Apologies for not using ‘aluminum’ and ‘skepticism’)
Hello Ken, the cover on this one is actually an ABS plastic, aluminum color, and I have seen many covers split in that location, as it’s not a really strong point of the cover.
with a closer like this, it’s hard to tell if the cover broke in half before the closer casting cracked or after.
-Jess the door closer doctor
I guess I’ve been very lucky in my 20+ years in the industry. I’ve never seen anything like this. It seems like abuse to me. How would the closer and the cover break in the same location otherwise? Is it likely that the force of the closer body breaking snap the cover? It doesn’t seem reasonable that the closer would move far enough to cause the cover to break if it’s secured on both ends. Even if it snapped in half completely.
Jess — from what I’ve read from other replies on this site, you probably have the most thorough knowledge of closers. What do you think?
Eric, thanks for the compliments on my past comments on Lori’s site on door closers.
with this closer, it is common for the cover to break at that location mostly happens when a person attempts to remove the cover to access the adjustment screws/spring tension nut on the end of the spring tube, they will remove the one screw on the side and pull the cover back then snap, cover splits in half or they lose the screw that holes the one side on and well, kids will be kids and have to see whats in the box on the door (many middle/high schools have closers that lost their covers, kids pull them off!)
as for the “analysis” of what may happened here, cracking of the closer casting can be a result of:
too much weight on arm (did someone attempt to do a chin up on its arm?)
teeth worn,not meshing properly in the rack (piston) or pinion, and instead of snapping a tooth, it caused the piston to push outwards (away from door) and over time it worn out to a point of causing the cast iron closer body to fatigue (and crack)
makes me wonder, what was the date code on this one (can be found on end plug end of short end of closer) or may be on the label on spring tube (long end)
-Jess the door closer doctor
Interesting replies.
The closer is a C/R DC2406
I can assure you this did occur just as the photo would suggest, this is the second I have seen fail in a similar manner. The only thing holding the closer together was the mounting bracket the until separated in a rather violent manner when we pried it free from the mounting bracket.
The cover is something I thought about a few times, when the closer body fractured a piece of the casting broke free (and flew at a high rate of speed I imagine) and could have contributed to the destruction of the cover. Jess is correct the cover is plastic and painted in a silver finish, it is attached via screws on the ends of the closer so this type of break could have broken it like this I am sure.
If everyone is interested I can post some more photos of the internal components of the closer, the main pinion gear is damaged and the rack is fractured in half. I thought perhaps the piston seized causing extreme stress on the rack and once is fractured it caused the case to fail. But I am not certain of the exact cause.
I’m happy to post the photos for analysis if you’d like. I’m sure the readers would be interested. 🙂