"MM54" (mm54mk2)
11/02/2019 at 19:50 • Filed to: Garagelopnik
3
12|
"MM54" (mm54mk2)
11/02/2019 at 19:50 • Filed to: Garagelopnik | 3
| 12 |
Yesterday after work, I returned home to find myself unable to open the garage door from the car. Like some sort of crazy person I had to key in through the front door and go through the house, open the door, and pull in. Unfortunately, a new battery in the remote this morning didn’t fix it.
They don’t make ‘em like that anymore (also it’s screw drive which is excellent)
The “near door” of the garage has an opener that is probably original to the house (1978). Connected to that is a mid-90's Genie box, which receives the radio signals and has a relay contact to act like another button and trigger the opener. (The “far door” has an old-but-new-enough-to-have-built-in-remotes Genie
opener, probably early/mid
90's).
After banging on it a couple times and trying multiple batteries, I deemed the remote not-working. This was confirmed when I tried to re-pair it to the remote-adapter-box-thing and it did not receive any sort of signal, even with the remote a few inches away. Fortunately a friend of mine has a much newer opener which uses an identical remote. I convinced him to bring it over and was able to program it to my opener, confirming the problem to be that my remote just up and decided to stop working.
Fortunately / miraculously, you can still buy remotes from Genie that work with the very-early cycling-code openers (as is the box on this one), and they can pair with multiple openers . Needless to say, I can now open both garage doors from one remote and bought a second of the same remote. I don’t have to play musical door openers when going between cars anymore !
The mud makes this look like it’s in a lot worse condition that it really is...
From here I turned my attention to what I intended to do today, which is address the non-working fog light in the 4Runner. The cover for the bulb is secured with three M3 screws, Phillips head (or JIS) and in the case of this one, stripped at some point. Instead of buying complete new housings, I opted to drill the heads of the screws off, remove the cover (pictured), and use pliers to remove the shank of the screws. I was then able to use new socket head cap screws (with anti-seize) to secure everything back together with a fresh bulb.
Both fog lights now work. A productive day was had
.
SiennaMan
> MM54
11/02/2019 at 20:36 |
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Can confirm that that would be a 1970s opener, my parents had one that looked identical to that in the '80s and '90s..
facw
> MM54
11/02/2019 at 20:41 |
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I’m petsitting for my parents and the older of their two garages has some super antiquated openers. Plastic casing which makes them look newer than yours, but I still suspect them to be ‘70s vintage. Remote support is provided by a dangling bare PCB hanging off the back of each opener. There’s a set of DIP switches on the PCB and another on the remote, which I assume means they are just paired with some coded value instead of having cycling codes. Security isn’t much of a concern, there’s a doorbell on the front of the garage that manually opens the door.
GLiddy
> MM54
11/02/2019 at 21:23 |
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Those old openers must have really been something. One of my openers from when my home was built (2004) sheered a gear a month ago and I resorted to buy a kit from Amazon to repair it.
Then last week I pulled my car into the other bay in my garage (two doors) and as I closed it I heard a loud bang and the cables that connect the door to the torsion bar whipped around. Broken torsion spring. I spent this afternoon replacing the torsion spring with a replace I ordered from some website when neither Amazon nor Home Depot had what I needed in stock. The only hitch was when I was finished and went to close it, the right side cable came loose and I had to work to remount it.
Be careful when messing with garage door springs. I had the correct tools (winding rods, visegrips) and researched heavily on what replacement spring I needed and how to safely replace and wind the thing.
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MM54
> GLiddy
11/02/2019 at 21:33 |
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I won’t do torsion
springs, fortunately my doors have the extension kind, and no signs of needing to mess with them (until I insulate the doors some day, then they’ll need balanced).
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MM54
> SiennaMan
11/02/2019 at 21:34 |
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It’s a tank. I would venture that very few (if any) openers sold today would still be in reliable service in 40 years!
myopicprophet
> facw
11/02/2019 at 21:38 |
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https://myopicprophet.kinja.com/you-cant-censor-me-1839570461?rev=1572745020327
Urambo Tauro
> MM54
11/02/2019 at 21:40 |
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Oh hey that looks familiar!
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MM54
> Urambo Tauro
11/02/2019 at 22:50 |
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Hey, nice!
If yours ever starts overshooting the limit switches and stopping on overtorque (when the carrier hits the body or the door jams on the ground), the little holder
comes
off with a 1/4" nut driver and the contacts are visible on the
springy
arm. Mine were very corroded and intermittent, cleaning them up with some emory cloth like you would
a set of ignition points solved that.
ranwhenparked
> MM54
11/02/2019 at 22:56 |
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Old appliances in general were built to run forever. 30-40 years out of a refrigerator or 60 years out of a furnace used to be closer to a rule than an exception. We’ve gained a lot in energy efficiency, but lost a lot in build quality.
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SiennaMan
> MM54
11/02/2019 at 23:42 |
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I can believe it. The one my parents had didn’t get changed out until sometime after 2005 and I can’t remember why.. my best guess is that it was 4-8 years ago and I don’t it was broken but that my folks wanted those safety sensors or the like that were a part of the newer ones now that they had grandkids visiting..
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MM54
> SiennaMan
11/02/2019 at 23:45 |
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When I bought the house a few years back, the inspector was not happy about the lack of sensors at the bottom of this door. I don’t have pets or kids or anything so I’m not worried about it. Makes it easier to hit the button then duck out before it finishes closing on odd occasions when that is the most convenient
way out of the garage.
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Urambo Tauro
> MM54
11/03/2019 at 06:47 |
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Come to think of it, I might have to adjust the one on the door end. Sometimes when closing , the motor keeps buzzing even though the door has already reached the ground. It’ll do that for a few seconds before turning itself off.