Name: Fix the damn garage door opener
Difficulty: Medium
Time to complete: 1.5 hours
Time to complete if you knew what you were doing: 0.5 hours
Status: Complete
Symptoms of problem: Door required human power to go up and down. Once when said human wasn’t paying attention, he crushed his damn fingers in the door.
Cause: The drive sprocket had sheared off the drive shaft, so the chain wasn’t actually connected to anything, except that one trolley that moves up and down the rail, which was, in turn, connected to the door.
Temporary solution: The aforementioned finger-crushing manual door operation.
Cost of part: $35 for a sprocket and worm-gear assembly from Sears. I think it would have been cheaper from Amazon.
Money saved on a service call: Probably $100
Skills required: Bolting, figuring out the location of secret bolts, figuring out secret clips wondering why they put the screw heads for the sprocket assembly inside the opener housing, untangling massive lengths of bicycle chain, lots and lots of hand-washing and ladder climbing.
Why do they put the screws for the spocket assembly inside the opener housing? I think you could probably break something (that something being the limit-switch drove gear) if you didn’t take the whole thing apart.
Safety features tested: Photoeye reverses the door, as does closing on a folding chair, so I think I’m safe from ever being crushed.
Injuries sustained: Mild burn from exposed garage light bulb.
Why don’t you have a compact fluorescent bulb in there? For some reason, it doesn’t fit in the socket. How the Underwriters Laboratories let this thing get by is beyond me.
Feeling of manly/husbandly satisfaction: Low to moderate. A liberal arts major would probably feel more, whereas, as a mechanical engineer, if I’d called a repair company I would be forced to hang my head in shame.
Photos or it didn’t happen: Coming to flickr soon, honest.
