Closing Hayloft Door

Ok, first, I guess this is the best place to put this. Second, my curiosity got the better of me. I've always been interested in being able to do things the way my grandfathers father was able to and when I moved into this house last year it came complete with an old barn. I noticed a large hayloft door on the front of the barn that I've been wondering how it worked. Yesterday I decided to open it. It had a long rope attached to it so I slowly lowered the door. As the door lowered, I was raised off the ground. Fun times. I had no choice but to let go of the rope which then let the door slam open, breaking the windows on the bottom at the same time.

The children and I tried to raise it again to no avail. Below are the pictures of what I'm working with.

The door isn't as heavy as it looks but gravity and the law of physics are working against me. As you can see in the picture....no windows now.


This is the tract that runs the entire length of the barn which the pulley assist slides on.


This is a picture of the pulley assist that is there. Right now the pulley is currently "stuck" on a flange that is on the track. The flange keeps the pulley assist from moving when you are using it correctly. You can see the two pulleys on both sides but there is also one that belongs in the middle which is pictured below.

The pulley on the right hand is the pulley that goes in the middle. There are two metal clips that hold this middle pulley in. When the rope is snaked through the pulleys and you pull on the rope it will lift this middle pulley up. When the middle pulley is lifted up it pushes the clips out which allows the pulley assist to move freely on the tract. Right now the pulley assist is currently "stuck" on the flange because this middle piece isn't in the assist system and I can't reach it at the moment.

Here is a link to what I "think" the barn is supposed to look like. http://www.coolmodelengines.com/html_pages/barn_carrier_descript.html

You'll see a little less than half way down the page that it talks about a support cable and return wire. I don't know what either of those are nor where they would attach too. I don't know how this pulley assist system would be able to pull this door up either. If I pull on the rope in order to pull the door up then the middle pulley will be pushed up thereby releasing the clips which are holding the assist system to flange that is on the track. When the assist system is moved backwards towards the person pulling then physics makes it near impossible to lift the door because your pulley is further back than the fulcrum of the door.

This is another picture that I've found which has the ropes laced around the assist system differently than it was here and differently than I've seen.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-Cl...y-Pulley-Barn-Rope-/152450422594?roken=cUgayN

Is there anyone who has better knowledge of this than me. How can i close this door the way it was done many years ago? The person who lived here before us said the only way they managed to close the door was by having a person on the ground taking a long 2x4 and raising the door with another person in the loft pulling the rope. It was then tied off to the beams in the loft. I'm NEAR positive this was not the way it was done back when. Thanks very much.

P.S There are other pulleys hanging around along with hooks as well which look similar to the wooden pulley on the left of that picture with both pulleys on the tire.

Ummmm If you cant reach the main pulley system riding on the beam, I think you've got a pretty decent problem to fix. I believe you first need to get a long heavy rope attached to the end of the carriage, then through the lower pulley (dropped down to ground level) then back up through the rear (barn side) pulley. You then need another rope attached to the outside of the carriage so you can pull it to the stop at the end of the rail (to get better leverage on the door you'll be lifting). Raise the hanging pulley up to release the lock catches then pull the carriage to the end of the rail. Lower the drop pulley back down level with the (now) bottom of the door to be raised. Attach it as the diagram shows, then pull the door back up.

If the door is too heavy to lift this way, take a second pulley attached to a beam back in the barn and run the pull rope through it and back toward the opening. If you then stand near the opening pulling the rope (toward the opening now) you should have cut the weight in 1/2.

This showing with TWO pulleys inside the barn (even less effective weight to lift) and you can stand on the ground an pull up the door. Of course once it's back up, you'll need to tie off the rope and climb up to secure the door closed. First, you'll need to get out to the carriage and either release the lock catches so you can roll in back into the barn to work on, or do the rope attachments to the carriage while it's out there then lift the lower pulley up to release the catches. Both ropes (the black one and the red one diagramed) will be attached at the front of the carriage. One will just hang to be thrown out and down to the ground to pull the carriage to the stop. The other will go back over the front pulley, down under the lifting pulley and back up through the rear pulley, then back into the barn to run through additional pulleys to effectively reduce weight being lifted.

Sorry about the broken windows... Hope I've explained it well enough that you can fix it.

@Latestarter !!!Thank you so much for taking the time out to make those diagrams for me!!! Its snowed pretty good today so I won't be able to get out there today but I will be going to see what the barn has to offer me either tomorrow or the next day and I'll post again then, hopefully with a success story. Thank you again very much!

Be careful there in the doing... wet, cold, snow/ice not a good combination when working at height, ladder involved or not. Glad to be of service. Looking forward to a successful recovery

Someone found this.
Quick question. It seems they have a rope tied to the middle pulley and towards the end of the video the guy is supposed to say "drop it". When that happens someone else pulls this rope and the hay falls out. How did he get that middle pulley to come unlatched just with the rope? I thought the only thing that unlatched the middle pulley was the flange at the end of the track so you could lower it to get the hay or door.

Edit Nevermind. The middle pulley doesn't come down to release the hay, the class just open up.

You wanted to replace that window with a design/material more appropriate to the age of the barn anyway, right?

Great find on that video. I love this sort of stuff. My barn doesn't have an upper floor so no hay carrier track. They must have pitched it off the wagon in the drive bay into the mow on the south side.

I think your best bet is to get all the parts down off the track, clean and lube them well and make sure everything can connect/disconnect as designed. The text in @Latestarter's first picture is in error, the ONLY pulley that is giving mechanical advantage is the one that lowers and raises. It decreases the effort by 50%. You need to pull the rope 2 feet to raise the pulley 1 foot. In fact, all those other pulleys serve only to redirect the pull line down to the horse/tractor and INCREASE the effort needed a small bit since each pulley and redirection will add a little resistance.

I imagine you wouldn't need the tow line that pulls the carriage out to the stop just to raise the door. That would require an extra person or a lot more travel on your part. Just use a stick up in the hay mow to push the carrier out the few feet it needs to go. Unless, of course, you are actually moving a lot of hay up into the mow, then that extra person pulling the carriage back would be quite useful. You would have someone (or 2) down there attaching the hay hooks to the hay anyway.

ASSUMING you have no need to raise/lower the door with the assistance of a tractor or draft horse and the door is too heavy to pull by hand with the 50% mechanical advantage of the raising pulley, you can connect the pull rope to another leverage advantaged block and tackle system up in the mow. And you'll likely have to do some trial and error to figure out how long the lifting chain(s) have to be for the best mechanical advantage. Are there any obvious connection points on the door? I don't see anything on the horizontal piece as is shown in the coolmodelengines page and the peak of the door is hidden in your picture but that is where the connection point is in the video.

I'd love to see follow-on pictures as you work on this.

You read my mind Bruce! That is exactly what was going through my head as I was acting as a counter weight being lifted into the air. Self: "You know, I need to give the wife a good reason to replace that window below me!" LMBO. Really gave me a good laugh

I will definitely be posting pictures if for no other reason than so you all can help me know if I need to correct things.

It's supposed to rain all this week so I'll probably not be getting to it since I'll have to raise the bucket on the tractor, then climb into that bucket with my extension ladder and hope that is long enough. We'll either I'll post pictures of the progress or I'll make sure the wife posts pictures of my hospital

I love old barns. You are so fortunate to have this barn! I'll be watching your progress on this. I always wondered how hay was lifted to the loft too!

Make sure the wife gets pictures of you just before you need to go to the hospital, wanna see how far you fall OK, not really. Maybe you better put a big ol' haystack under the projecting part of the roof.