Wife yells at me from the garage that the door won't close, it's after store hours, so no repair possible, didn't hear the ubiquitous "BANG" so it's not a spring.

Out to the garage, the motor turns but the door won't move over a foot and stops, lower it manually, springs good, door moves fine, but when we press the button the belt moves about a foot back and forth then stops, visual inspection shows missing teeth and torn belt.


Being a Craftsman model it's belt is no longer made, 11 years old. Searching the interweb turns up a possible match from Liftmaster the 41A5250 7 ft door belt.

It's $76 on Liftmasters site, $91 on Bezosworld.... from the LiftMaster store.

Think I'll call a local Liftmaster place in the AM, see if they have one in stock, how much and if it will fit my Craftsman 3/4 horse opener.

Of course the question is, why'd the belt give up, age, something mechanical, and should I take the $100 and buy a new 3/4 horse opener which is just shy of $400 for opener, bar and belt.

Ah the joys of home ownership...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: HRK,

If it's a standard V-belt you can likely get one a lot cheaper from your local industrial supply. Can you read the number on the belt itself?

At one time Chamberlain made garage door openers for Craftsman. My at the time 18 or so year old garage door opener belt gave out much like yours. The repair guy wanted way too much to fix it so I just went over to Home Depot and picked up a Chamberlain belt driven one. When I was swapping it out, I noted that most of the parts were interchangeable between the two. Brackets, sensors, etc. Belts looked identical. I bet you could get a Chamberlain belt that would fit the Craftsman if you wanted to go that route. It was cheaper for me just to replace the entire opener.

What kind of labor does it take to install the belt? If it's not too much work, I would spend the $100 to repair it. 11 years is not that long for an opener.

Got ahold of a local dealer, they don't have any belts in stock to sell, ie for service calls only, but confirmed the one I found online will work, so I ordered it from BezosWorld, will be here tomorrow.

Will find out what the labor requirement is tonight when I take the old one off.

The question is, why did the belt shred in the first place, is it age, 11 isn't that old, or something else...

My inclination is to just drop $300 on a new opener, belt and rail, have a issue putting a $100 belt on that might end up with the same issue if the opener is chewing them up and needs new gears or something.

But what the hey, will give it a shot.

If the drive pulley is not damaged & the belt isn't catching on something, you should be OK. 11 years in a garage is enough time for rubber to dry rot.

I recently switched from screw drive to belt on both doors -had 1 get hit by lightning & then spring broke a month later, so swapped both to keep remotes same with shop. I thought I knew better than the directions & tightened the belt more on the 1st install. Loud, choppy movement, etc until I loosened it back up. 2nd one I went by the destructions & worked fine (other than I need new doors, they squeak & rattle even after replacing rollers & lubing hinges).
Also, if you replace, consider picking up some better angle supports. The chamberlain I bought needed to be lower than the old one so I had to use the flimsy angle they come with. The opener wobbled considerably. I swapped that out posthaste with the old one & just have the opener up a little higher than recommended.

I had a belt do that on my old Craftsman. About the same age, too. And did the same thing, new Chamberlain belt.

Which is approaching the same age. I’ve also done a gear rebuild on that Craftsman. After around 25 years, I’ll probably replace the whole thing soon.

Good to hear that, hopefully it's just the age and exposure to heat/humidity we get here.

New belt will be in Hand soon courtesy of the folks in BezosWorld...

IF not, it's returnable and I'll opt for a new unit.

If you did have to replace the entire unit, I would recommend a jack shaft version. No belts, nice and quiet. I have the LiftMaster 8500.

My son recently had an issue with his chain drive opener. We traced the problem back to the circuit board. Home Depot, Genie, 3/4 horse for $179 I believe. It was a no brainer

quote:

Originally posted by TBH:
My son recently had an issue with his chain drive opener. We traced the problem back to the circuit board. Home Depot, Genie, 3/4 horse for $179 I believe. It was a no brainer

On the older ones, there are separate motor-control & safety boards. I had a safety board get cooked by lightning. All it was was the AC>DC power supply to the break-beam eyes, but the board was $75 vs <$200 for a new opener. Since wife wasn't going to let me hear the end of it, I jumped the power from the other opener for a week until I replaced it. This one is 1 PCB & likely throwaway.

quote:

Originally posted by mark123:
If you did have to replace the entire unit, I would recommend a jack shaft version. No belts, nice and quiet. I have the LiftMaster 8500.

I saw that, it's a pretty cool option, the only issue would be power, there isn't any in the garage where it would install, would have to get power run to that area. But, I do like the idea of getting rid of the opener in the middle of the garage.

Belt gets here today, if that solves the problem then the current Craftsman/Liftmaster will stay in service, if not, Maybe the 8500...

I have the 8500W, great opener, and way quieter than a chain or belt.

It's a belt. You got 11 years out of it. It's probably the weak link in the system. If the mechanicals look and appear to work okay, I'd change the belt. Hopefully you'll get another 11 years out of it.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Got ahold of a local dealer, they don't have any belts in stock to sell, ie for service calls only, but confirmed the one I found online will work, so I ordered it from BezosWorld, will be here tomorrow.

Will find out what the labor requirement is tonight when I take the old one off.

The question is, why did the belt shred in the first place, is it age, 11 isn't that old, or something else...

My inclination is to just drop $300 on a new opener, belt and rail, have a issue putting a $100 belt on that might end up with the same issue if the opener is chewing them up and needs new gears or something.

But what the hey, will give it a shot.

I had a similar dilemma a few years ago.

I ended up buying a new unit. Liftmaster. It has a very quiet operation, a built in motion light (so you don't have to fumble around in the dark trying to find your overhead light switch), controllable from my phone if I wish. I can open/close it from anywhere as long as I have an internet connection.

It also has a built in battery for backup. There's been a few times I've come home and saw that the power is out, and I just mashed my remote button and it came right up. Neighbors came over and asked how I still had full electric power. Nope, battery backup, I replied. And shut the door with the remote.

It also logs every door opening/closing with date/time. I can check remotely through my phone and verify if I closed the darn door or not. That's been a relief.

IIRC it was right at $600.00-ish installed turnkey. They did cut me a really good deal.

I understand wanting to not spend a lot of money, but I'm glad I spent a few extra bucks and got this better model. I'd do the same thing again. I do recommend it.
.

Hopefully that's it, when I press the button it stops when it hits the belt part with no teeth and doesn't try to keep going, will find out if the opener jammed and stripped the teeth or it's just a bad belt.

We have the MyQ system so it does the remote stuff with open, close and status from the phone, also set an auto close for midnight, if we've left the door open it will close automatically.

Put one on the daughters house as well and we share access, good for taking things between homes, feeding cat/dogs when on vacation etc.

Just as an FYI, if you need a good garage door service guy, I've been using the same guy (and recommending him to others) for over ten years. Local small business owner who's currently training his son to take over the business when he eventually retires. His pricing is very fair, he's easy to deal with, and he does exemplary work. Email me if you want his contact info.

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:
Just as an FYI, if you need a good garage door service guy, I've been using the same guy (and recommending him to others) for over ten years. Local small business owner who's currently training his son to take over the business when he eventually retires. His pricing is very fair, he's easy to deal with, and he does exemplary work. Email me if you want his contact info.

Will do, If I can't solve it myself...

quote:

Originally posted by bigdeal:

Just as an FYI, if you need a good garage door service guy, I've been using the same guy (and recommending him to others) for over ten years. Local small business owner who's currently training his son to take over the business when he eventually retires. His pricing is very fair, he's easy to deal with, and he does exemplary work. Email me if you want his contact info.

Yes, he is an excellent guy. You put me in touch with him a few years ago, he has done great work for us at reasonable cost, shows up when he says he will.

I have already passed the contact information to HRK offline, via text message.

Thanks for all the help. Got the new belt installed amd it’s working great!