Maintaining a garage door opener

[gary]

How should I clean and lubricate the chain and the sprockets on a 30-year-old Stanley garage door opener with a chain drive?

[WW]

How should I clean and lubricate the chain and the sprockets on a

30-year-old Stanley garage door opener with a chain drive?

Gary Home Depot has spray cans of Garage door Lube. My door opener company recommended it when I had the door serviced. Also he wiped along the side seals with wax to cut down friction ...WW

[gary]

How should I clean and lubricate the chain and the sprockets on a 30-year-old Stanley garage door opener with a chain drive? What kind of cleaner? What kind of lubricant?

[Ed Pawlowski]

Stanley garage door opener with a chain drive?

Any kind of oil or chain lube will keep the chain moving freely. Spray or wipe with an oily rag. Be sure to lube the rollers on the door also.

[Doug]

Stanley garage door opener with a chain drive?

I've been using WD-40 for all but probably there is something better for the chain or screw drive. All I know it works for me for some time. I guess something is better than nothing.

[Frank]

30-year-old Stanley garage door opener with a chain drive?

Guy that installed mine said to use WD-40 too.

[Danny D.]

I never understood WD-40.

But, nobody yet has mentioned that the best way to maintain the garage door opener is to maintain the door itself, such that it isn't an undue load on the opener.

That means lubricate the bearings, the torsion spring (assuming it's the torsion type), and make sure the spring hasn't lost its tension, over time, due to fatigue.

Here's a picture of a friend's bearing, recently gone bad.

The way I just did that was to paint a solid line on the fully wound spring. If/when that solid line begins to waver, I'll know the spring has lost its tension a bit (which, admittedly, will take years to occur). In addition, for noise reasons, lubricate the hinges and roller moving parts and the TOP of the bar on some garage door openers.

[Jim Elbrecht]

+1 on that. I've seen the look on a friend's face when I opened my 16' wooden door one day when the power was out. 1 finger will do it. ????He says??? "I can barely lift my 8' door."

Don't know torsion springs-- but adjusting the other ones is a piece of cake and worth the 30 minutes you might spend on it.

Check the pulleys- and all the bolts holding the door sections together.

Jim

[Vic Smith]

+2. I just had a new door installed. The installers just counted turns on the springs. Since they seemed to know what they were doing, I didn't butt in. A couple days later I pulled the detach cord to test manual operation. Maybe 40-50 pounds effort needed to lift the door. I'm going to adjust the springs soon.

[jamesgang]

I'll add that a lot of the garage door openers have plastic gears in the final drive stage to the chain sprocket. They are what usually go first. Keeping the door springs adjusted will help prevent that. You can also put a little grease on the plastic gears occasionally.

[krw]

That's why the plastic gears are there. They're sacrificial gears; easily replaced.