775 Shoe Not Moving Freely

Thanks for contacting us, Mike. These shoes are unfortunately not sold separately anymore. If yours is broken, then your only solution would be to buy a new Series 775 balance.

Before you consider buying new window balances, let's see if we can find the problem first. You said the metal locking pin seems to be scraping the window track. If so, there might be a worn pivot bar.  

First, remove the sash and see if the locking pin faces towards the inside of the house. If so, place a large screw driver into the nylon shoe cut out and turn the shoe up to release it. When you do this, keep holding onto the screw driver. This will hopefully unlock the shoe, and if you don't keep a firm grip on it, it will shoot back up to the balance and could break or splinter into pieces. Make sure to wear gloves and goggles just to be on the safe side.

If the shoe does feel like it wants to shoot back into the balance, bring it back down to where it was and turn the shoe towards you to lock it in place. This will confirm that the shoe is functioning properly and that the problem might instead be the pivot bar. Look yours over and see if its bent or broken in any way. Seeing photos of it will also allow us to identify a match.

If you feel that the shoe does not want to shoot back into the balance, though, and if it just hangs limp in the track, then that means the spring tension is gone and you will need a new Series 775 replacement balance. 

That may indeed be the culprit. This would be easy to confirm, too; since one of your pivot bars is broken clean in half and has to be replaced anyway, you can use that window as the test. Replace that pivot bar and see if it fixes everything. If it doesn't, come back here and we'll see what we can do.

As for what pivot bar to use, yours is very similar to our 26-444. Just make sure that all of our dimensions line up to your measurements, especially the hole placement.

I'm glad to hear so many of your windows are working again! That's great news.

As for your last couple windows, there is unfortunately no updated version of your balances. In fact, the Series 775 is itself an upgrade of an older version that isn't made anymore. The type you have now is pretty much as good as it gets, in terms of make. Based on what you describe, I do think replacing the balances will repair those holdouts.

Hello, Samantha. Looking at your photos, the Series 775 does look similar, yes. We also have detailed information on the Series 775 store page that you can use as a reference to confirm.

Wow Samantha, thanks for the kind words--we really appreciate it, and we're always glad to help. Please let us know if you ever need anything else.