Thanks for the video, very thourough, but there is one thing you did not cover that I need help with --> I inherited a Norelco Genie Trac-drive 940A which looks to be a screw drive machine from the '80's. It has the limit up and limit down switches but the wires connecting them to the motor are missing. I cannot find any manual to show me where/how to connect these limit switches at the motor. Can you help me with this?
So I haven't been around a trac drive for a long time, but here's what I can remember Basically, the limit switches work by grounding through the rail and chassis to shut off the opener, and the wall button works off the same basis as that. The down limit switch should have a prong that you plug a wire into, and the upper limit I believe has 2 prongs, one of the prongs you connect to the wire that goes to the down limit switch and the other prong needs a wire that connects to terminal 2 (or the middle terminal) on the opener. Terminals 1 and 2 are for the wall button, if you look at the terminals one of them has a gold wire attached to it, that's the ground wire that goes to the chassis so the wire from the limit switch needs to run to terminal 2 and when the circuit for the limit is closed it will ground through the rail and shut off. Hopefully that helps enough, but like I said i haven't been around a trac drive for a long time so I don't completely remember how everything goes together on them.
Great video. Your explanation was very useful and prevented me from having to replace my existing garage door opener. My opener is over 30 years old and with your help is working again. Thanks, Jim from Georgia
Thank you! My old ass genie garage decided it wouldn't open more than a few inches. I watched your vid, adjusted the clutch and it worked!...it'll live to see another day. Thank you so much! You saved me a few bones as well and got earned some brownie points with my wife :) Cheers from Reno, NV
Extremely useful to troubleshoot my genie half horsepower garage door opener. cleaning the clutch plate and roughing it up made the clutch engage on closing the garage door.
Great job like the video I think my problem is I need to adjust the clutch. Thank you very much for showing me that. I was about to buy a brand new one.
What a informative and well-paced video jesus... pretty sure you just solved several issues I've been having. Even if not, thank you for taking the time to share
Great tutorial. I own a Genie Pro with a screw drive. Lately I'm experiencing problems. The garage door will open but often not close or reverses direction back open in the middle of closing the door. It almost looks like it's tired when closing. I followed the steps from this video. I roughed up the Reluctor Hub and Clutch Pad and tighten up the clutch adjuster. But no improvement. I'm not sure what I can do to resolve the issue.
Awesome ! I have the issue where if I tap the close button it won’t shut. If I hold the button it closes all the way. At first I thought it was the sensors so I bought new sensors. Upgraded them. Im not sure if I wired them correctly because I wired the new sensors to where the opener also wires into it. So I’m going to rewire it to where it should plug in to see if that works. If not I’m going check the clutch.
Holding the button won't make the door close if the clutch is slipping. When you wire up the sensors both the red and green lights should be on solid. It shouldn't matter which way the wires are connected at the sensors themselves but at the opener it does matter which way the wires are plugged in. It's easier to cut the plugs off the end of the wires and splice into the existing wires with the new sensor and when you wire them up put the same wires on the front and back terminals (e.g. all the solid white wires go on the front terminal and all the colored wires go on the back terminal), i dont rember if the wires for the sensors are color coded or not but if they are it saves the hassle of figuring out the wires.
Great video, but I have a unique problem. The door will open and it will stop on command, but it will never reverse direction to go back down. It is an older SD9500, but well maintained. I have two identical door lifts so I switched the 2 boards from one to the other but still no reverse. If I unclip the trolley and lower it by hand, you can hook it back up to raise the door. You can repeatedly stop it on the way up, but it never reverses direction. Any ideas.
I disassembled the clutch, removed all the build up using a mild detergent, dried all, reassembled, and still not spinning the screw. Tightened the spring all the way, still nothing. The is play/slop between the clutch and the motor drive, maybe 1/8” that when the motor starts does not allow for the clutch pieces to remain in contact. I can push the screw drive back to make contact, but when the motor starts to spin contact is lost. What could be the source of the play? As an aside the motor starts to spin in one direction, then starts to spin in the other direction with the carriage disconnected. BTW, great video, Thx
It sounds like you have a broken e clip. If you unbolt the rail from the motor unit and slide out the screw a little bit, there should be an e clip that if it's broken or not intact will allow the screw to slide backwards making the clutch useless and not able to engage the motor to the screw. If it's broken, they don't make replacement parts so your best bet will be to salvage one from another old opener, or you'll have to replace it. I've never seen those clips show up on ebay before.
@@TBHD724 You were right on! I listened to your diagnose and opened where the screw drive feed into the opener. Found the broken clip. You are the man! Thank you very much!
I have an older genie screw drive garage door opener. I greased up and ran it a few times . The problem after the last time i ran it it only when up half way. I closed the door mannually then tryed to run it the next day and it till only worked little over hslf way. Do you think its the Compacitor or something else i can try to get it working again?? Thanks Wally
First thing to look for is to see if the door has a broken spring, if it does get it replaced ASAP. Assuming the spring is OK, the first thing I'd try is to tighten the clutch on the back of the opener, if you still have the same issue try to take apart the clutch and rough it up like I showed in the video.
Do you have a broken spring? Check that first and if it is get it replaced immediately, if not try tightening the clutch or taking it apart and roughing it up like I showed in the video
The limit switches can be found pretty much anywhere online, from genie directly or from a garage door company, very cheap part and very easy to replace
Thank you so much for this video it really help me a lot. How do you know when your capacitor is not working? I hired a garage repair man and he didn’t even know how to fix this kind of opener. The only thing he was saying is a very old model and I should replace it . So hopefully with your video I can replace it myself .
If the capacitor is bad, the opener will either sit there and hum when you try to open it but not move the door, or you will see smoke come out of the capacitor if you cycle it multiple times in a row. If you take the cover off and look at the small white hole on the capacitor you will also be able to tell if it's blown out pretty easily.
I think you may have answer this already for another poster below, but I have a similar situation where when you lower or raised the door it just stops a third of the way. It doesn't reverse. I notice that the eye beams and the wall switch momentarily lose power and reset about 10 seconds later. I press the wall switch again and again it only travels about a 1/3 of the distance and stops. I figure it is the transformer since wiggling the connections to the logic board did nothing (both Ebay and Amazon have them available). I was also thinking that replacing the capacitor may fix the problem. FYI, my house was going through a renovation where power to the house was getting cut off. So that may have contributed to the opener getting damaged. Thanks in advance.
The capacitor doesn't cause the whole opener to lose power, you're correct about it being the transformer. You can replace them but it's a bit difficult since you have to drill out the rivets
Just wanted to thank you for your help. I was able to swap out the transformer (from Amazon $20) and my garage door opener is back to normal. Took me about 10 minutes to swap it out. This thing has been a work horse for the last 25 years and I really did not want to go out and buy a new opener. I even installed on it one of those $25 WIFI adapters and I now have a "smart" garage door opener. @@TBHD724
I'm trying to figure it out were does the antenna wire goes. Mine doesn't have the antenna wire anymore and I'm not able to open from outside with the remote. And I need to put a new wire but where exactly?
The antenna will either need to be re soldered or you'll have to buy an external receiver for the opener. Check my community tab for a picture of where the antenna goes on the board
excellant video, thanks! Question: installed my screw drive back in ‘91, not a single problem till now. Had to replace trolley 3 times in last four months. My guests would try to open door without knowing the side latches were engaged. The force from the motor/screw would rip the trolley from the rail thus destroying it. In years past this occurred occasionally but the motor always stopped when encountering such resistance. Could it be the clutch adjustment or the reluctor assembly? Called a local repair facility and was told repair parts did not exist for a unit this old and gave me quotes for a new replacement. Any help would be appreciated.
The clutch actually doesn't stop the opener going up, it only reverses it on the way down. In your case it might be better if you replace the opener since new openers have force settings in both directions
I having problem when I try fully open garage door and the garage moved back down about 2” after fully open up. Do you know what is the problem? Thanks and appreciate your time.
If the door coasts down when its fully open and hooked to the opener, that means your door is more than likely underbalanced, you should call a company to tighten the springs as it's not something you should try yourself
enjoyed the content very much! My problem is quite different. If the latch on door is engaged into the side rail, the motor will not register the resistance, continue to try and lift door and will demolish the trolley by by ripping it off the screw rail within 1-2 seconds. clutch issue or reluctor? BTW the unit is from the early ‘90s. thanks
The clutches on this opener don't do anything on the way up, just the way down. These won't stop for anything when they're opening. If that happens to you a lot it's probably a good idea to replace the opener with a new one which will have force settings thatll prevent that from happening
Parts still made would be the trolley and capacitor, you can replace the receiver with an intellicode receiver board but you'll have to get new remotes, most other parts however are obsolete and your best shot is looking on ebay for parts or find a used one on fb or Craigslist and pull parts out of it
hi been working on the clutch, i fixed it so that the garage opens but it refuses to close, i tightened the clutch all the way and it doesnt close, i loosened it little by little but it refuses to close...any tips?
At first I thought it was a capacitor issue so I bought a new one but didn't work, then I turned the clutch and there was life, came across your video and did everything for the clutch and it would finally open all the way but not close
We having problems for our garage the panel and the inside of the garage it works perfectly it is the remote control that we use for in the car that's giving us problems and we change the battery but that was the problem and it ain't the battery every time we hit the button several times the remote control do not moving up for us to come in the garage and we trying to leave to go to church in the garage won't go down either what do we do do we need to call somebody to fix it
If you have LED lights in the garage that affects the range of the remote, try turning off any LEDs and see if that does anything. Otherwise try adjusting the antenna on the opener or getting a replacement opener radio set that runs on a different frequency
@@TBHD724 It's intresting how a Genie made in '94 had dip switches, and a LM made in 94 had Billion Code, but they are 2 different companies and Genie didn't start learn buttons til I think the promax but I'm not sure
I have a genie intellacode screw drive opener that just clicks like a machine gun when you try to open it. I have lubed the track, replaced the carriage, and the coupler and it still does it. Any other suggestions?
The intellicode openers don't have a clutch. If I were you I'd start with replacing the start capacitor, and if that doesn't work you most likely have a bad board
Thank you so much for this video. We have a circa 1994 Genie screw drive, that looks exactly like the one in the video, which I installed shortly after our house was built, and until now it has run great. Lately, it has been having problems getting stuck in various positions. I used your video and repaired/adjusted a lot of things. It seems to work much better, except now when raising or lowering it often loses power completely (including the electric eye and wall switch). I found that if I wait about 5 minutes, it resets itself and the power comes back on, but then the same problem keeps repeating. I've adjusted the clutch many times, but that doesn't seem to make a difference. It acts like there is some internal circuit breaker that keeps cutting power and then resetting itself. Do you know what the problem might be? Would it be one of the circuit boards, and if so, which one? Your advice would be much appreciated. Thanks.
That could be one of two problems, either a loose connection at the wiring harness for the logic board, or a bad transformer. You can test the wiring harness by wiggling it around some and see if anything loses power, if not then it's the transformer. They don't make transformers for these anymore, so you'll either have to find one on ebay, take one out of another one and swap it, or replace the opener alltogether
I made sure all of the connections were tight and reassembled the unit. I don't know if that did the trick or if the fact that we just have to push the button once now instead of several times, to open or close the door, but it seems to be working fine now. Thanks for the help, maybe I can get another 26 years out of the opener.😀
Thx for your thorough video. My torsion spring broke and the drive had torqued the rail. Was making grinding noise. I dissembled the clutch and clutch base and put it back together. However now the plastic nut just spins loose on the end of the spring. Please advise. (This schematic was a great help as well.) 7941f249-da52-4516-9391-2e6ce33e2f43.usrfiles.com/ugd/3ef5a4_4bdc23990a3a499a824d7a1c7449a016.pdf
When the spring broke, did you tighten the clutch as tight as possible to allow the door to open? It's possible that the nut is stripped, you can try replacing it with a metal nut of the same size
You aren't supposed to tighten the clutch to compensate for a broken spring, if you tighten it enough to allow it to open for a broken spring it can cause damage to the door, but tightening the clutch that much can cause that nut to strip out. If you have a broken spring get it replaced ASAP
