Not having an automatic garage door opener can be a real inconvenience and if you’re building a new home like this one this is the best time to put it in right from the start. It’s a fairly simple project although it will take some time, but it’s a project you can do yourself for your vehicles.
You want to start by putting the rail together. And the rail comes in three pieces. These just slide lock into place with these clasps.
Next you want to put on the trolleys. I have two. This is an inner trolley and this is the outer trolley. First you put on the inner trolley. Just slides down the railing just like this, and the next is the outer trolley.
And what this is for, the belt attaches to this and this will slide up and down the railing to open and close the garage door. Now pull the trolley to the front of the rail. You need to add a stop bolt to stop your trolley. This stop bolt is going to be held in place with this nut. And this stops the trolley in the right place for the garage door to be in the right position.
Now we need to add the pulley for the belt. Go ahead and put your belt through this slot and then your pulley’s right here in the center.
And again this is held together with this bolt will be attached with this nut.
Attach the rail to the motor by sliding it in the place.
And this is going to be held in place with the backstop bolt.
So put this through here and screw the nut on. I’m installing a Craftsman silent drive garage door opener. What’s really nice about this is there’s hardly any noise. That’s because of the belt. This is still reinforced belt encased in rubber. Compared to the chain drives which are so noisy, this one doesn’t have the metal rim up against metal which causes all the noise.
What you want to do with the belt is run this around this back pulley, run it back down the rail and attach it at the other end. We’ve attached this in the belt to the trolley and it clicks into place.
To attach the other end of the belt to the tension spring take the chain-link, put it through both of these holes just like this, and you want to take the master link and put it on top. When that’s in place we can use this clip to clip this all together. Taking care of your vehicle is important because it is your vehicle is your partner for travel whether it can be a two-wheeler or a four-wheeler.
Now after this is done we need to tighten up the tension spring into our belt. It’s the right tension that we need.
We’ve done as much work as we can on the ground. Now we’re almost ready to attach this to the ceiling but this is where you’re going to need an extra pair of hands, this is pretty hard to maneuver by yourself. This is Ten Burger – our technical advisor. Ten, you can help me attach this to the ceiling?
What we need to do first is to catch our header bracket. And to do that you’re going to have to raise the door just a little bit to mark the highest point travel.
Ten, if you raise the door for me. You want to use a level. As soon as you get the highest point of travel, you want to make a mark on the wall.
After you get your mark on the wall you’ll need to take a tape measure and measure up two inches above that mark and this is where we’re going to mount the header bracket. So up two inches and make another mark.
This is the header bracket. What you want to do with this is put the bottom of this bracket on that mark that you just made.
Remember the marker is two inches above the highest point of travel and we’re using 2″ lag bolts to attach the bracket.
So start putting this in the top and then I’ll just screw this in. Once the header bracket is in place now you can go ahead and attach the front end of the rail. Ten, will you hand it up?
And what you’re doing is you are placing the rail inside of the bracket, you need to line the holes up to put the pen through.
I’m pushing this pin through and I’m going to use the safety ring to hold this pin in place.
This just guarantees that your pins are not going to be sliding out. What I’ve done is mounted these two brackets to hold the motor.
We went up into the attic and saw that the joists run this way across the ceiling instead of lengthwise so I took 2″ lag bolts and screwed these up through the drywall into the joists and this is going to give us a good mount.
Okay, what you want to do is raise this motor up. You’re going to line the holes up from the motor and the bracket and just use line of sight to make sure this is level. Take this bolt and push it through both holes. Now I need to securely tighten this nut.
You can take a wrench to tighten it all the way. I’ve drilled two holes in the door to attach the bracket.
This is the bracket that will attach the door to the trolley. Be sure and put this two to four inches below the top of the door. Just line the holes up, put your bolt through and securely tighten the nut on that.
I’m going to attach the safety sensors. There are two of these that come in the kit and this is a really important safety feature. What these do you attach wanted these on each side of the door this creates an invisible beam that goes from one sensor to the other. And if the beam is broken said he had a child or pet run through and break that beam, the garage door will automatically stop and go back up. As a matter of fact in the last five years over 30 people have died from being crushed from the garage door opener. So the government recommends that if you installed a garage door opener before 1982 you need to have it replaced. If you had a garage door installed between 1982 and 1992 it’s very important to upgrade the garage and add these safety sensors. They could definitely save a life.
I’ve marked six inches above the ground and that’s where we need to attach your safety sensors. And this just snaps into place. Add the safety sensor and then tighten this wing nut.
Use the staple gun and run this wire all the way up the side. You can see that I left a little bit of the wire and that’s in case you need to make any adjustments. What you’re gonna do is put a staple about every 12 to 16 inches.
Let’s gonna run this all the way up the side meeting in the middle with the other wire and run both of them back to the motor.
As you can see I’ve run both wires down the middle and I’m attaching them to the motor.
I just need to put this last wire on and tighten this up. Now I need to do is plug this in and we’re almost finished with the installation.
The last thing that we need to put on is the trolley arm. So I need to push this pin through here and then again I’m using the metal ring just like I used on the header bracket to lock this in place. Now this trolley arm comes in two pieces and its adjustable and I’ve already adjusted it to where I need it. This piece right here goes in the door bracket, got a little pin. One more ring and we’re finished. Our installation is complete.
Now I wanna show you how the safety sensors work. Let me close the door.
Now I’m going to use my hand and break the beam. And just like that it goes back up.
This automatic garage door opener costs $250 dollars. It is a project that you can do yourself but we saw that the extra pair of hands really came in handy.
Even with two it’ll still take you a better part of the day, but once you’re finished just a click of the button will make your life a lot easier.
