Strengthen Door Frame

I liked the bracket that Stacey Mills made the take some of the weight off the hinges of the door but I didn't have access to anything to bend them. I was in my dome & noticed what appears to be a channel to strengthen the door frame. I don't know if the door frame is different now but the inside of your door looks like mine (first pic) you can "easily" add some support to make the door frame stronger.

I used a 1/8" thick piece of 3/4" steel flat stock 39" long. 3/4" fits in the channel perfectly. You could use AL but I would make it thicker. You could maybe get away with 3 bolts one on top, middle, bottom but I went with 7. Top, middle, bottom plus one just above & below when the hinges are.

I used 1/4-20 bolts so I just drilled the holes in the middle of the bar. Held the bar in place & used the drilled holes to mark the door frame. I drilled the first 3 holes & installed the bar & used the drilled hole are guides for the rest.

After the frame was drilled I bolted the bar to the frame & marked the hinge bolts hole. *** Be VERY careful when you make the hinge holes *** You can see by my other photos two of my marks were off & it was a real PITA to fix. Take the marked bar off & drill the holes. DO NOT drill the hinge holes thru the door frame. It would be very easy to mess up plastic hole in the door frame. You will need to buy longer hinge bolts.

After I installed the bar & re attached the door it was a lot stronger.

2 Comments

Steven Green

Aug 25, 2022

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Thanks for the post. I have two questions:

How long were the 1/4"X20 bolts?
Would you be able to use the middle hinge hole as a mounting point?

Steven

telawson

Aug 28, 2022

Replying to

Steven,

1: I used 1/4-20 3/4" bolts to mount the 3/4" bar stock. My flat stock was 1/8" if you use something thicker you may need longer bolts.

2: I was able to use the holes that I missed drilled for the hinge. That is why I have the warning in my post. I tried to make the hole large from the door frame side. I stopped when I realized that it was making the frame side hole larger. I was still able to use the holes to mount the hinge but if I had kept going it may not have worked.

If you try to do this it's really very easy but like I said be careful when you mark the hinge hole. If I was to do it again & would pre drill with a lot smaller drill & re mount & check the hinge holes.