Back to Garage Door Question List The first thing to check are the electric eyes that are located on either side of the door frame. Their purpose is to detect an object in the way of the door and reverse or disable the opener. If the eyes are not facing directly at each other, they may work intermittently, causing occasional spontaneous reversals with no rhyme or reason. If you don't have these eyes, no one stole them... you just have an opener that was built before the 90's when they became mandatory for all newly manufactured openers. Disconnect the garage door opener from the door and go through the troubleshooting routine on the garage door repair page. In fact, you really should read the entire garage door repairIt will make troubleshooting later much easier! Remember that sometimes, a garage door opener can increase the binding in a door just because of the way it pushes the door down. Ever notice how it is easier to pull a wagon over a curb than it is to push it?
doors were designed to be pulled, not pushed. You may think the door is working OK because it feels OK, but you should still check all components to be sure. Do any necessary repairs, reconnect the opener and try it out. are having problems, you can make slight adjustments to either the closing force, opening force, or the travel limit adjustments. Some older garage door openers do not have nicely labeled adjustment screws for force and travel limits. In fact, even some of the newer openers manufactured for and resold by your basic garage door company are not userThis guarantees return business... costly minimum charges for diddlyUnfortunately, I cannot give you specs on every opener and all the configurations, but, if you want to know how I have approached the problem of limit adjustments on an unknown opener, it's really a matter of observation and how they work will help you to find the adjustment. on the principle of transferring force to a momentary contact switch:
If there is enough resistance to the movement of the door, this force is transferred back as torsion (twisting force) in the motor assembly. this torsion exceeds the strength or tension in the springs that stabilize the motor assembly, the assembly twists. A small arm of some sort is attached to and moves with the motor assembly. If the movement is great enough, the arm will strike a switch, sending an electrical signal to the The springs and/or switch may be located on the top of the unit, or is off, plug the opener in, keep your hands clear, and send the opener through a cycle or two. If you are lucky, it will reverse as always and perhaps give you a clue as to where the force adjustment springs are. If you figure out where the adjuster is, simply increasing the tension on the spring will increase the closing or opening force. For opening and closing limit adjustment: Look for trip arms or clips attached to the opener chain.
may be metal plates screwed on to the chain, plastic snap-ons dojiggies with flexible metal arms attached, etc. There will be two on the chain, one for the opening limit and another for the closing limit. activate the opener, the clips move with the chain, and hit the auto-reverse switch when they reach it. By repositioning them, the switch that they trigger activates earlier or later, thus increasing or Open up the case and look for a screw-type track that moves when theSometimes, the limit switch is activated by the movement of a specially shaped "nut" traveling on this track. opener is activated, the screw rotates, causing the nut to move, until itWhen the opener reverses, the screw turns the opposite way, and the nut travels back. There may be two nuts on one track... one for the opening limit and one for the closing limit. starting position of whichever nut, the opening and closing limits areYou know what they say... sometimes you feel like a nut... sometimes
Be sure that unit is unplugged before making anyThe opener may start and bite you... orAfter making the adjustment, plug it back in, keep your hands away, and test your adjustment. Back to Garage Door Question ListGarage door opens 6 inches then stops It is an older (9/99) 1/2 HP Craftman model. Been working fine since we got the house, but today it would only open about 6 inches then stop. The most o got it to open was about a foot. I have tried adjusting the limit screws and nothing! If i disconnect the opener from the door, i can open it by hand. The, when in the up position if i hit the button the traveler will open all the way until it reconnects. The door shuts fine, but then won't open again. I have the same problem I have the exact same problem and it is driving me crazy! I don't want to buy a new one if I do not have to. Disconnected from the opener, the door opens easily by hand. I checked the rails the rollers, and the springs have been replaced a couple years ago, so the problem is not the door.
also when disconnected, the garage door opener works fine - it does not stop on the way up or way down! Is tehre a sensor or something inside the opener? we had a similar problem with ours and the plastic gears were worn to a point where the tension was ok going down but too worn to pull the door up . this is typical on craftsman. Pull the inspection cover and check for plastic shavings You may have a stripped out gear but be careful because you may have a broken spring that caused the gear to strip out in the first place. First with the door in the closed position i would pull the disconnect cord from the opener. Then make sure that the door goes us and down manually without too much effort. If you can't open the door at all then the spring is probably broken. If you can lift the door but is seems to be binding then that's were you should start to address the problem. Yup, it was a spring. One had snapped, so we got both replaced and it works perfect now. Thank you for the help!
I hope you got a good deal. Thanks everyone - it was the gear assemly - like a snow storm when I opened the back. Thanks ... read this post and found out I have a broken spring... now to find a good deal. Anyone know a good spring repair place in the NW Detroit suburbs? Loews has them for sale to replace yourself. All I did was unplug and replug the unit and it worked!! One of your springs are broke. I had the same problem for sometime... well I say sometime, it was about an hour so I got on line and found that the sensors were out of line and had to realign them so they became green again... Door opens like new again.. I had the same issue where it opened about 2 inches and then stopped. At first I thought the Extention Springs were worn, so I bought new extension springs and pulleys, but still the same issue. Then I read the manual, and adjusted the "Opening Force" by 1/16 clockwise and that fixed the problem. I have a Genie screwdrive garage door opener.
I still think replacing the extension springs and pulleys was a good investment as they were 13 years old to help reduce the load on the garage door opener. I adjusted the blue "up" screw about 1/32 to 1/16 of a turn up. My door operates perfectly now. I also lubricated every hinge point on the door as well as all of the rollers and applied some bearing grease to the gears inside the unit just for good measure. I have the same problem but it only happens when the temperature outside is below freezing. does both sensors have to be green Mine are one is green and the other is yellow. I consider this normal, but I've heard on some units , both are green. I have a Genie Excelerator - about 10 years old. It stopped working about a week ago when it got really cold (below 0, I think) - would go up about a foot and stop. I had to hold down the button on the wall unit to get it to work and go up all the way - my remote wouldn't get it up beyond a foot. So, every day, I stopped in my driveway, walked through the snow to my front door and then came through the house to open it up!
I was ready to call a repair company today. Decided to give it one last shot - I opened it up and checked the lift knob - was at max. I checked the sensors (one is green, one is red, and this is correct with my opener). I cleaned the sensors and insured nothing was in the way (they weren't blinking, and that means there's an issue, but I cleaned them anyway). Checked all the wires - everything was good. I just had a new spring and new wheels put in a few months ago, so that wasn't it (door wouldn't even BUDGE when the spring was broken). It's always the easiest answer, huh??? I was about to give up but then, I UNPLUGGED it after I saw someone's post to do this, waited 10 seconds and plugged it back in...and yes, it's working! I'm kicking myself I didn't try this a week ago...wouldn't have thought of that unless I had read these posts, so thanks for the tips! I adjusted the up switch as you noted. I was having the same problem, I read this post and unplugged it and waited.
Plugged it in after a minute, works perfectly. This post was chosen to be featured as a blog.How to fix a garage door that won't open The reason that screw drive openers do this when it gets cold is because the rail is general made of soft aluminum while the screw is usually made of steel. When the temperature drops the soft aluminum contracts onto the screw causing the motor to sense the presence of abnormal force. Unplugging the machine resets it (genie), turning the force up is merely a band aid. You need to spray wd-40 into the rail from underneath where you can see the screw that spins, spray the entire length and press the button with the emergency release pulled to clear the old stiff grease out. Next you want to get some "Lubriplate", white lithium grease, or "low temp" grease, do not use any other type of grease WHITE ONLY. Apply a light line of white lithium grease to the screw from under the rail, front to back. Next re-engage the emergency release to allow the door to open and close, last press the button, the carriage will run the new grease into the rail.
Wipe any excess off of the rail(but not the actual screw) to prevent it from dripping on your door or vehicle. As stated earlier merely resetting the opener may work but as soon as the cold returns you will be faced with the same issue, and turning up the open force also works at the expense of premature failure of your electric motor. Fix it right, clear that old grease out, and apply new grease. Now pat yourself on the back, you just saved yourself a $95 service call, or better yet a $300 opener. Had the same problem, adjusted the lift weight and unplugged it, waited... working great, and how did we live before the internet? Wait that's another question Another Genie owner here who had the same problem. I managed to resolve the issue simply by UNPLUGGING as many others did. Thanks for the tip. Otherwise I must have called a repair guy. wait for several minutes... just like rebooting the computer to reset the system!!! I just save hundreds of dollars!!!
Worked perfect for me after experience identical issues. Thank you , thank you. Tried the unplug trick and the door worked 1 time. Reset the up and down switches to the middle position and wiped down the top of the main chain bar and sprayed with silicone grease. Checked and cleaned both beams and they are green as they have always been. Seems to be working now. It is a Chamberline two car garage door. Haha, tried your approach and it worked. I sprayed a degreaser in my screw drive while running the unit up and down with door disconnected. After 5-6 times it he gunk from years of build up was lose and my door has worked great since. I had the exact same problem with the exact same Craftsman model. This is what I did: 1) Verified first that there are no obstructions that may trigger the safety mecanism to stop the door 2)Confirmed springs are not broken or defective 3)With the latch disengaged I confirmed few times that the trolley can travel freely when the mecanism is activated