NordicTrack treadmills are fantastic pieces of fitness equipment that require regular care and maintenance to operate at their best, which might require you to remove its cover or hood. This piece helps house all of your NordicTrack treadmill’s essential wiring and motors and is usually located at the head of the treadmill in front of the track. Thankfully, removing your NordicTrack treadmill’s hood is easy with just a few simple steps.
In this article, we’ll take you step-by-step through the process of removing a NordicTrack treadmill’s cover with basic tools in no time. We’ll cover what equipment you’ll need and how to safely perform this process to ensure you don’t cause any accidental damage to your workout equipment.
Locate Your NordicTrack Treadmill User Manual
While you could skip this step and get right into unscrewing and removing various pieces of your NordicTrack treadmill, the safest way to go about this process is by referring to the treadmill’s user manual.
Each NordicTrack treadmill will come with a user manual upon purchase that details everything you need to know about the equipment, including where various screws are located to remove the treadmill’s cover.
Before you proceed to removing your NordicTrack treadmill’s cover, we highly recommend you search for its user manual and find where in the manual it discusses details regarding the cover. Some manuals will provide their own guides for removing this piece (or how to put the treadmill together, which you could reverse engineer to remove the cover), or it will tell you what and how many pieces are keeping it in place.
Knowing this information will help you find screws and other components quicker and reduce the chance of you damaging the cover in attempts to pull it off without removing all screws and connected pieces beforehand.
Remove the Screws Located Around the Outer Rim of the Treadmill
Once you know where all of the screws are located on your particular NordicTrack treadmill, you can begin the simple process of removing them in order to remove the cover altogether.
First, unplug your NordicTrack treadmill from any electrical source for maximum safety during this process. Next, using a long Phillips head screwdriver, start removing the NordicTrack treadmill cover by removing all screws you see around the rim of the cover located at the head of the treadmill. Be sure to safely store all removed screws in a cup or bag to be replaced later.
The goal here is just to remove the cover, so don’t unscrew any screws you see towards the back of the treadmill near the track, as these help to keep the track and other components in place.
Some NordicTrack treadmills ensure the integrity of their screws by drilling deep recesses into the treadmill, creating holes where the screws reside. Therefore, you might need a relatively long and skinny Phillips head screwdriver to remove them, or even one with a magnetic tip to easily pull the released screws out with the screwdriver, so check these screws and their housing before you decide on your tool of choice.
Place Your NordicTrack Treadmill in the Storage Position and Remove Screws Underneath
While this isn’t the case with all NordicTrack treadmills, some models will have screws underneath the treadmill that help keep the cover in place. This is where your user manual comes in handy, so you know if you can skip this step or not.
If your NordicTrack treadmill has additional cover screws underneath the treadmill, the easiest and safest way to reach and remove them is to place the treadmill in its upright storage position. From here, you can use your Phillip’s head screwdriver to remove the screws.
Typically, there will only be about 2-4 screws underneath your treadmill near the treadmill cover to remove. Once they’re out, you can gently return your NordicTrack treadmill to its original position for the final step.
Slide the NordicTrack Treadmill Cover Out and Off the Treadmill
Before you start tugging at the treadmill cover, we recommend checking all of your screw holes to ensure you’ve removed those that keep the cover secure. Attempting to remove the cover in place could result in damage. Again, referring to your user manual and matching the screws depicted there can help guarantee all have been safely removed.
With all cover screws removed, slide the treadmill cover out and away from the treadmill track. This should remove the cover tabs from their grooves and allow you to lift the cover off the treadmill.
If you feel a suspicious amount of resistance as you attempt to slide and lift the NordicTrack treadmill cover off, you might want to double-check that all screws have been removed or see if any exterior damage (ex. denting) is inhibiting your ability to pull the cover off.
Once the cover is removed, you’ll have access to your NordicTrack treadmill’s wiring and motors for maintenance, repairs, or even to replace old and worn-out components for renewed treadmill.