No products in the cart.
Most garage door openers have nylon gears inside the casing. Garage door opener stripped gears are a common repair. Typically, these parts last 10-12 years based on average use. Gear and sprocket replacements are easy do it yourself projects. If you opener gear is stripping out every few years, here are some possible reasons why.
Greasing the Gear
The quickest way to strip your garage door opener gear is failing to use grease. Without applying grease to the nylon gear the teeth will quickly strip from excess friction and heat. Most gear kits include small parts and a grease packet part number 83A11-2 . It is also important to grease the rail on your opener along with all nylon parts inside the casing.
Spring Tension Adjustment
Running your electric garage door opener with a broken spring should be done in emergency situations only. Torsion springs do the majority of the work in lifting the garage door. When springs break the automatic opener works extra hard to open and close the door, putting stress on the gears inside. This is especially true on larger and heavier doors with single spring operation.
Increase Horsepower & Cycles
Garage door openers have maximum load ratings based on square feet and door height. Using an opener that isn’t rated for a heavy door will cause it to wear quickly. Openers also carry a cycles per house rating. Violating the recommended cycles per hour guideline will also cause the motor to breakdown quickly. Most operators have a maximum rating of 12-15 cycles per hour.
My opener uses a belt so not greased. Gear stripped/torsion spring ok. What could cause this? Thx!!
Just because your opener is belt drive instead of chain drive doesn’t mean it shouldn’t have lithium grease on the gear. The drive gear (and sprocket) is inside the opener casing. It is made of a hard white nylon (plastic) material. You should apply a liberal amount of lithium grease around the teeth of the nylon gear annually. Stripped gears are caused by 2 things mainly…
1)Improper spring tension, meaning the opener is overworking to pull the door up and down.Do a balance test. In cold weather states, sometimes the door can freeze to the floor causing the opener to overwork itself.
2)The gear doesn’t have enough lithium grease. If its dry it will shear off.