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The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...
One of ours in the rental house is also an old Craftsman. I started looking at replacement parts, and pretty quickly decided the better way to go would be to just replace it. Fortunately, the conductive grease put it back to work.
Here's the conductive grease I use for such things. It has carbon in it, and will easily get all over everything if you get it on a finger. I already had it for working on old tractors. It's not exactly cheap, but a lot cheaper than the kind that has silver in it.
For the erratic garage door openers, I scraped the stripped ends of the wires, straightened the ends out so I could put them straight into the sockets, dipped the end of the wire into the end of the grease tube without touching the grease with fingers while on the ladder, and stuck them back in the holes. Both doors went right back to work.
https://www.amazon.com/MG-Chemicals-...6251852&sr=8-3
Di-electric grease is non conductive, and relies on contact between conductors, protecting them from corrosion. I figured since the contact area was so small on those little wires that conductive grease would be a better choice. It also protects against corrosion, while at the same time helping with conductivity.
We had a C-man chain drive that I had replaced the drive gears twice. When we had an insulated door installed I went with a Champion belt drive. Great improvement.
I mounted the safety lights on a rafter pointing to each other. They can be moved to the floor if desired.
Great opener and so much quieter than the chain.
My father had one of them. One of the drive gears was plastic and would strip out if the springs weren't set up properly. After replacing it twice he bought like 5 replacement gears and had them zip tied to the bracket that held the opener. My G doors have jackshafts and the opener mounts directly to them. Much better than the ones that have a track with a screw, belt, or chain. They are so quiet that all you can hear is the motor humming once the wheels were replaced with ones with bearings.
Well, I've tried the good suggestions here and no joy. The opener is still usable, the remotes work to open but we have to hold the fixed switch button to close the door. I have looked at new openers and I guess the screw drive openers are out of favor. I found all of one and it was like $280 where chain or belt drive start at $156, most are high $100s - low $200s. I did look at the wall mount units, they're a thought. I Guess we'll put up with what we have 'til we get tired of it.
The better openers, including the jack shaft versions, are unfortunately not inexpensive. That should not be surprising...
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The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...
Both my garage doors have the jackshaft style openers. They are very quiet but require the door to be in good working order. If your door has the type of springs that stretch out as the door closes you can't use a jackshaft style opener. When the door is open it has enough weight trying to start it closing because jackshaft openers don't actually close the door. They just counter the spring so gravity will pull the door down. They also have a way of checking the tension on the cables that connect the jackshaft to the bottom of the door. If the opener starts to counter the spring and the door doesn't start to close and the cable gets slack it'll create a bird's nest and a huge mess. The tension measuring device will prevent that.
I can not remember if the Stanley screw type opener from 1997 came in a short box with the screw and rail in 3 segments. Every time I have to install a big box store opener I wish the homeowner had called a pro door guy who could provide an opener with a one piece rail.
In that rental house I mentioned, there is one screw drive, and one belt drive side by side. There is not enough difference in noise between the two to matter. The door itself makes more noise than either opener.
Curt, when I had the new opener installed last summer by Des-Carr, the technician took quite a bit of time carefully realigning the wheels and track as well as lubricating all the hinges...all ten billion of them on a 16' door. It now operates with very little sound. So in combination with whatever your choice is for a new opener consider spending an afternoon going over everything and lubricating things. It really does make a surprising difference!
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The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...
The change in sound level was pretty amazing, Curt. So much so that I'm about to re-lubricate again (one year in) to keep things that way! Garage doors are one of those things that can be "out of sight, out of mind" where 10 minutes of "hard labor" (LOL) can make them "disappear" even more.
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The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...