Screw Drive Genie Make Hellacious Noise

jage

I just put in a used screw drive Genie that is probably from the 60's judging by color. It's well greased (if there is half as much inside) and works fine, even has the safety features of stopping instead of just reversing.

The problem is there is this banshee wail screech every time it operates, even with the carriage disconnected the screw screeches on the metal. It's ear pearcing and unbearable.

Is it something I can fix? Alignment? Tension in the screw drive? More grease?

firehawkmph

When I put up openers for customers, half the time I am taking down a genie screw drive. Know what the #1 complaint is? They're noisy! Why would you go through the trouble of hanging an opener that's 30-40 years old? Throw it out and get either a chain or belt drive. Skip the craftsmen. Even though they are made by liftmaster, they aren't the same. The LM belt drives are very quiet. The genie Promax 500 chain or belt drives are good, however, they are only available through garage door distributors who generally won't sell retail.
Back to your opener, if you have greased the screw with genie's low temp grease and it's still real noisy, something else is going on. Even if it quieted down with the grease, it doesn't take long for it to dump the excess grease either on your car or the door itself and then it reverts back to it's noisy ol' self.
Mike Hawkins

jage

Because the door isn't worth the $20 I put into the Genie and the garage isn't worth the door. If I had the money to tear out the garage and do something else, I would in a heartbeat but right now it's a small step up from a fancy cardboard box that keeps some of the wet off some of my stuff, and hardly needs a fancy opener.

If you think that's bad, you should see the opener I took out. It pre-dated safety features and when I ran it back to back 4 times trying to adjust the chain it nearly caught fire. From the smoke odor it was itself salvaged from a horse barn and not cleaned before installation.

Nothing like home ownership, right?

(BTW I'm not pissed at your response, I believe what you're saying although I didn't know to ask. My is for the hours I've spent trying to get the garage door to work smoothly)