The other day the garage door opener started making some noises it shouldn't have been making. I decided to see if I could see anything wrong or if it just needed some grease on the gears. Well, it wasn't grease. The main sprocket gear (see below) had some pieces that had broken off. It appeared there wasn't much left of the collar that fit over shaft, and I found a handful of pieces inside there. There were just two small pieces still on that collar that were lifting the entire door. There was no way those would last long since they are made out of Delrin and not steel or brass. This was going to require me removing the motor assembly from the ceiling to work on replacing the gear. Wasn't looking forward to this at all.
I looked online to see if I could get the parts locally or have to order and found they were available at a Repair/Parts center in town. A bit of a drive but could get to work on it right away instead of waiting for it to arrive in 10 days. We use our garage door almost exclusively getting in and out of the house, so we wanted it done soon.
Well guess what. That repair/parts center no longer exists and hasn't been there for some time evidently. There is one more in town but it is even farther away. So I headed over since I was in town already. Yes, they had the part. No, it wasn't the same price as the website said by a little over 2$. I pointed this out to the Sears employee and just got shy smile, not even an unfelt apology or anything.
I had to get a battery for my lawn tractor a while back at Sears. The employees (creepy looking millennials) were less than helpful and were more interested in just standing around. Their parking lot was empty as were most of the shelves. It's no wonder they are about to go under. Oh, and they don't open until 11 AM. What's up with that. They know they are in trouble yet this crap goes on. Sad to see this institution of American capitalism fall so far. It's not just them. Most Big Box stores are having issues. I don't understand why they are and Walmart seems to get bigger. Smarter people than me will have to figure that one out.
Happy Trails
2 comments:
You're a better man than I. Last time I tried to 'fix' a garage door opener, I ended up having to have it replaced... sigh
Olde NFO- i was afraid that would happen but I at least had to give it a shot to save some $$ if I could. It took longer than it should have and I was pretty sore the next day. getting old isn't for pansies
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