What Kind of Grease for Garage Door Opener Gears UPDATED

Recently all of a sudden our automated garage door opener stopped working, and then I did some inquiry to observe out what was wrong with it and how to gear up the problem.

Garage door opener motor can neglect due to several dissimilar reasons, only the almost common reason for failure is an insufficiently lubricated garage door. The door starts getting a lot of friction and resistance when closing and opening, which in plough puts a lot of pressure on the motor unit of measurement. The plastic gears inside the motor outset wearing out very apace and somewhen go stripped or break down. To set up the problem, damaged parts and gears inside the motor unit should be replaced and the garaged door needs to exist lubricated properly. Let's take a expect at how to do this with detailed footstep by step instructions and pictures. In our case, this is a Linear garage door opener, but a similar procedure might be applied when working with other brands such as Liftmaster, Chamberlain, Craftsman, Skylink, Ryobi, and others.

Symptoms

Grinding racket within the motor unit.
The garage door would not open up when trying to use a auto remote when driving up to the house.
I tried to utilize Open/Shut buttons on the wall command inside the garage, but they didn't piece of work either.
The motor was working, as I could hear it spinning, but the concatenation wasn't moving at all and the garage door wasn't opening.
I removed the plastic embrace for the motor assembly and discovered a lot of plastic shavings on the bottom of the encompass.
I also noticed that one gear was heavily worn out with all teeth almost completely stripped.

Possible Causes

Normal wear and tear can exist one of the reasons for the failure. Our garage door opener is about xv years old, and so it's non that unusual for the motor to break down afterwards then many years of service.
An insufficiently lubricated garage door tin can contribute to the problem. The door becomes much harder to open and shut, putting more load on the motor and somewhen causing it to break downwardly prematurely.
Insufficient lubrication inside the motor unit itself.

Warning

Working on garage doors can possibly crusade SERIOUS INJURY or Expiry. The post-obit parts of the garage door are under Extreme tension: cables, torsion springs, pulleys, brackets or their hardware. NEVER try to work on, repair, move, conform or loosen those parts without proper training and safe equipment to avert serious injuries. ALWAYS call qualified garage door service company if your garage door is out of balance, binds or sticks, or if y'all need assistance with repairing other serious problems with your garage door. All content provided on this website is intended for informational purposes just and cannot be held liable for whatsoever injury, impairment, or bug that ascend when trying to duplicate steps described here. This information is provided "as is" without any representations or warranties and should not be treated as communication. This data is not guaranteed to be accurate. Exercise it at your own risk.

Eliminate the Source of the Problem

Before you go ahead and prepare your garage door opener, you may want to find out why it broke down in the first place. Otherwise, you will exist fixing information technology again soon. If your garage door was very squeaky and loud when closing and opening, information technology needs to be lubricated properly.

Audit Garage Door Rollers

It is also a expert idea to inspect and if necessary replace whatever damaged rollers. Carefully push the garage door away from the track and check if the rollers can spin freely. Brawl bearings may go bad over time and if not taken care of tin pb to more serious and costly harm.
Checking garage door roller bearings

How To Replace Worn Out or Stripped Linear Garage Door Opener Gears

Unplug the power cord.You will be working with or near the electric motor, high voltage wiring, and the circuit board during this repair. Disconnect power cord to avoid getting killed, shocked or seriously injured, and to prevent causing damage to the equipment. You may also need a stepladder to reach the garage door opener. The ability outlet is usually located on the ceiling shut to the motor unit.
Lower the garage door if necessary. If the garage door is not already airtight, pull downwardly and back towards the motor unit the ruddy emergency release rope and lower the garage door. This volition ensure that you don't get accidentally hurt while working inside the motor unit if the door starts rolling down on its own.
Remove the motor unit of measurement embrace.There are four screws (two on each side of the motor housing) holding the cover. Loosen or remove those screws and pull down the cover and remove it from the motor associates. To avoid losing the screws y'all tin can either place them in a secure place or screw them back in the same holes they came out of. Luckily this particular garage door opener is very easy to service and you won't need to remove the unabridged motor, sprocket associates, drive concatenation, etc.
Disconnect both wire harnesses connected to the excursion or logic board. They are located on the contrary sides of the logic lath.
Remove the logic lath.It is held in place by ii Phillips screws.

Remove both screws, carefully move the logic board to the side, and exit it hanging on the wires. Don't waste time trying to disconnect the wires to remove the logic lath, merely be very mindful and don't damage it while working on other things.
Remove the plastic E-shaped retainer for the helical gear on the bottom of the bulldoze shaft. You volition need to button on the pin going through the hole on the bottom of the drive shaft and then pull off the servant out and away from the shaft.

Use latex gloves, as there might be a lot of lubricating grease within the motor unit.
Remove the limiter gear on the bottom of the bulldoze shaft. Simply pull it downwardly and then have information technology off of the drive shaft.
Remove the limit switch associates. For that, you lot'll need to remove four long Phillips screws. You can access them from underneath the motor assembly.

Be very careful and try not to mess upward the limit switch assembly to avoid re-configuring it afterwards the repair is finished.
Remove the snap ring for the helical gear. Ideally, you will demand a pair of snap ring pliers for that.

If you don't have snap ring pliers, you tin can just apply a hook and choice set to remove the snap band. It will be a little more challenging, just you should still exist able to accept the snap ring out.
Slide the helical gear off of the drive shaft. You can employ a hook tool to pull the gear down. Turn the worm gear back and forth if the helical gear is not coming off easily.
Inspect the residual of the motor unit and write down all broken or worn out parts that need to exist replaced. Inspect and if necessary replace the sprocket assembly.
Order replacement parts. Depending on the extent of the damage you may need to supplant just ane or multiple parts. When possible it is recommended to use original OEM replacement parts for perfect fit and reliability. To find the correct parts y'all volition need to notice the exact model number of your garage door opener. You lot can usually find information technology on the information sticker on the side, in the front or in the back of the motor housing. For example, I found an OEM gears repair kit for my Linear LD050 garage door opener sold by the manufacturer for less than $15 here (this is an Amazon affiliated link). It included every serviceable part I could maybe demand to this repair and fifty-fifty had the lubricating grease included.
Clean the inside of the motor unit. Before installing new parts, employ a compressor with a hose to blow off debris and plastic shavings trapped inside the motor unit of measurement. I personally don't accept a compressor, so I just used compressed air duster instead, and information technology worked just fine.

Installation Process

Utilize all necessary replacement parts and reassemble the garage door opener in the reverse order. I only had i stripped gear, while the residuum of the parts looked OK. If you have whatsoever other broken gears or parts, replace those also.

Lubricating the Garage Door Motor Unit of measurement

As you are reassembling the motor unit, lubricate all gears, bearings, bushings, shafts and other moving parts using the synthetic grease included in the repair kit. Following are just a few examples of what should exist lubricated inside the motor unit of measurement.
Lubricate the worm gear.
Lubricating Linear garage door opener motor unit gears
Lubricate the new helical gear before installing information technology. Information technology will be much easier to practice this if the gear is off of the drive shaft.

Lubricating Linear garage door opener motor unit gear
Lubricate the pocket-sized gear on the limit switch assembly.

Lubricating Linear garage door opener motor unit gear
Lubricate the limiter gear on the bottom of the drive shaft.

Lubricate Linear garage door opener motor unit gears

Test the Motor Unit

Afterward you reassembled the motor unit, do not reconnect the trolly just yet. Carefully test the motor unit performance start. Employ a remote or wall control buttons and be prepared to stop the motor if something goes incorrect or if you hear grinding or other unusual noises. Make certain the upper and lower limits are set up up properly. If the garage door limits or the trolly chain got out of alignment during swapping the gears, you will demand to re-adjust them.