i bought a house in 2004 with a wayne dalton garage door and engine.

the door goes up fine, so i know that nothing is wrong with it.

this week, when i tried to open the garage, it will only open about 9 inches, no matter what i do. nothing is blocking the sensors on the floor - i have cleaned them, realligned them, etc.

anyone know what is wrong or what i can do to fix it? i'm trying not to have to call the people because they charge $95 for a service call whether they fix it or not.

1/28/2007 11:43:55 PM

is this one of those above the door openers? they suck because if it were to ever break in the up

position, you couldnt service it.

take it down, go to sears and get a craftsman

this is what i was told by installers



[Edited on January 29, 2007 at 12:04 AM. Reason : k]

1/28/2007 11:52:10 PM

Is your garage door one of the ones that has those nifty springs above the door?

If so, are they broken?

This same unfortunate thing happened to my parents, and the big fucking springs on top of their garage door had snapped when the temperature fluctuated from pretty warm to fucking freezing for about a week.

1/29/2007 12:06:04 AM

i have one big spring looking thing above the door, but it doesn't appear to be broken?

1/29/2007 1:07:36 AM

Yeah it should be fairly easy to tell. I walked into my parent's garage and you could just see that one of the springs was in two parts. I guess it's possible that it broke on the far side or something but it should still look fucked up.

So yeah... Maybe the motor just burnt out and needs replacement. Replace it with a more powerful motor perhaps?

1/29/2007 1:17:29 AM

unhook the door from the motor and raise it manually. is it hard to raise? if you stop it midway, does it stay or does it fall down to the floor? check it in various places...1/4 up, 1/2 up, 3/4 up.

if it falls back to the floor, then your springs are either broken or need to be tightened. the door weight should be neutral (IE it won't go up or fall on its own once stopped half way)

also check the track that the chain rides in. make sure it is clean and maybe add some grease to it.

With the door up, start the motor to 'raise' the door. If the motor returns to get the door then you've got an issue with the weight of the door or friction on the door tracks or motor track. If the motor still stops before reaching the 'top', then you've got a bad motor probably.

You can get a new Genie opener at Lowes for around $80-$100 for the lower models. They are not hard to install, especially if you are replacing an already existing opener.

1/29/2007 8:41:39 AM

if its a new wayne dalton, you have a coil spring on a shaft with two pulleys on the ends, make sure the cables are still on the pulleys right and connected to the bottm corners of the door. then try to raise it by hand before you condemn the opener

1/29/2007 8:53:38 AM

teh door stays open when raised manually...also, it still stops at 9 inches if i have manually raised the door and then hit the door opener button...

1/29/2007 9:17:25 AM

have you tried unplugging it?

1/29/2007 9:21:59 AM

i would check your limit switches. maybe the upper limit switch somehow got dragged down to the 9" point.

1/29/2007 11:03:58 AM

wayne dalton parts are crap.

i've had 2 remotes break in the last 6 mos.

1/29/2007 12:20:44 PM