garage door opener

Garage Door Opener Problems – Door Won’t Open

As a proud owner of a Craftsman garage door opener, model number: 139.53985, I had the experience of the door not moving when I pressed the remote control. I have had this particular garage door opener for around five years and it gets a lot of use, so I can't complain.

I decided that I would first try to fix the door opener before I replaced it because it looked like a real challenge to modify a new one to fit where this one is since my garage door was an odd size.

First I went up and removed all of the power going to the opener then I took off the cover and found that the worm gear had just worn out so the teeth weren't touching the teeth of the other gear any longer. There is a Sears store nearby so I took off the old gears by removing the gear rack and then the motor. The bad gear was attached directly to the motor so I had to take the motor off far enough to slide the bad gear off. Once I had the both gears off I took them to the Sears store where they matched them up with a new set of gears, all for around $35.00, a lot cheaper that a new garage door opener, and easier to fix too.

I replaced the new gears in the reverse order of what I took the old ones out and carefully pieced the unit back together. You have to watch and make sure that you put all of the washers back where they go because most of them are thrust washers and are needed to take up the pressure of the gear pushing against them to provide the energy to move the door up. If the worm gear is allowed to hit the metal frame directly it will wear out quickly, so make sure the washers get put back in correctly.

Once the unit is all back together you still need to set-up the door opening and closing distance and pressure. Just raise the door up and down once so you can determine where it needs to go and make the necessary adjustments until the door goes where you want it to.

If done correctly the garage door opener should last you many more years.