**Installing a Chamberlain Garage Door Opener: A Step-by-Step Guide**
When it comes to garage door openers, there are many different brands and models available on the market. In this article, we will focus on installing a Chamberlain garage door opener, a popular choice among homeowners due to its ease of use and reliability.
**Preparing for the Installation**
Before starting the installation process, it is essential to gather all the necessary tools and materials. These may include lag screws, clevis pins, ring fasteners, socket wrenches, impact drivers, and wire cutters. It's also crucial to locate the garage door opener bracket on the header of the garage ceiling.
**Installing the Support Brackets**
The first step in installing a Chamberlain garage door opener is to install the support brackets. These brackets need to be screwed into joists, not just drywall, as this can be super dangerous and lead to serious injuries or property damage. The brackets should be installed on both sides of the bracket where it will meet the ceiling.
**Assembling the Garage Door Opener**
Once the support brackets are in place, it's time to assemble the garage door opener. This involves attaching the clevis pin and ring fastener to the bracket. Lean the garage door opener against the bracket, making sure it is secure. The clevis pin should be slid through the bracket and into the garage door opener, with the ring fastener placed in a secure position.
**Positioning the Garage Door Opener**
To position the garage door opener, place it on a ladder and slide the emergency release rope through the trolley. Make sure the red handle is facing the correct way. The two brackets that come with the garage door opener should be installed, one straight and one curved. The straight arm can be very long, so it's essential to trim it according to the directions.
**Attaching the Straight Arm**
To attach the straight arm to the bracket on the garage door, use a clevis pin and ring fastener. Attach the straight arm and curved arm together using nuts, washers, and bolts. Hand-tighten these and then tighten them down using a socket wrench.
**Re-engaging the Trolley and Installing the Wires**
Once the arms are attached, re-engage the trolley by pulling it back into position. Plug in the garage door opener and install light bulbs or wire it according to your wiring set-up. The Chamberlain system is designed to be simple and easy to use.
**Final Check and Testing**
After completing the installation, press the garage door opener and check how it runs along the track. In this case, it was smooth, quiet, and worked out great. It's essential to follow the directions according to your wiring set-up and ensure that all connections are secure.
**Conclusion**
Installing a Chamberlain garage door opener is a relatively straightforward process that can be completed with a few basic tools and materials. By following these steps and taking necessary precautions, homeowners can enjoy a safe and reliable garage door opening system. If you like this video and think it will help somebody else, please go ahead and click on the thumbs up button.
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enHi, there! This video’s going to show youhow to do a garage door opener installation.So my garage door opener went bad, and I figured,“Hey, why don’t I shoot a video and showyou how I did it?” So I’m going to beinstalling a Chamberlain garage door opener.If you look online, Chamberlain garage dooropeners get awesome reviews, and that’sone of the reasons why I chose mine. So let’sget to it. If you need to do this fix on yourgarage door, stay tuned. There are a ton ofgreat tips. And I think that you’ll reallyenjoy this video. Let’s get to it.All right, if you already have a garage dooropener, you’re going to have to remove theold one before you put the new one in. Solet’s get on to that.Unplug the garage door opener by pulling theplug from the outlet, and pull the light coveroff that will reveal the wiring and the lightbulbs. So what you want to do – this lookslike a little bomb but – you want to takea picture of this because those wires, whichrun along the ceiling here, attach to differentthings.The white wires connect to the sensors thatstop the door from opening and closing ifsomebody should go underneath it. The brownand colored wires oftentimes connect to differentswitches, like this switch on the wall.So again, either take a smartphone or a normalcamera and take a picture of that wiring.Then you can undo it using a screwdriver.As you can see here, all you need to do isunscrew the terminals, and you can label thewires if you want to. Also, remove the lightbulb.So what you want to do next is put a box ontop of a ladder so that it supports the weightof the garage door opener because we’regoing to be unbolting the garage door openerfrom the support, and the last thing you needis for it to fall on your head.Once the garage door opener is supported bythat box, you can loosen any of the nuts andbolts on the brackets using a socket wrench.So that’s what I’m doing here. And it’scool because what you do is you just pullthe bolts out, and the box will support thegarage door opener. Disengage the emergencyrelease, and pull the clevis pin and the ringfastener.Now you’re going to carefully lower thegarage door opener. Carefully remove the boxfrom underneath the garage door opener. Lowerthe opener to the ladder. And then move theladder out of place and lower the entire garagedoor opener to the floor. This is really,really simple and easy to do.So what you’ll have to do next is removethe clevis pin and ring fastener from thebracket on the header that’s right aboveyour garage door. This way you’ll be ableto totally disengage the entire garage dooropener unit and move it out of place, outof the way so that you’ll be able to workon the new garage door opener.If you look online, Chamberlain garage dooropeners always get good reviews, and thatwas a huge reason why I chose this one righthere. I chose the Chamberlain Whisper Drivebecause it’s a steel-reinforced belt insteadof a chain drive. And that makes garage dooropeners super quiet, which is exactly whatI wanted.So take the garage door opener out of thebox, put it on a towel, and set the railsto the side, too. There are five pieces tothe rail system, and there’s a window onthe front rim. That’s going to be for apulley. I’ll explain that a little bit later.There’s also a tab that needs to face up.So make sure that this tab is facing up whenyou put the rails together.So put the rails together by hand. If youhave trouble doing this, you can use a rubbermallet to lightly tap them together. So setthat aside. Put it on top of the garage dooropener. Put a box on the floor and rest therail on top of the box. Put a screwdriverinto the hole in the rail, and double-checkthat the trolley here has four plastic tabsin it because these tabs allow the trolleyto move smoothly on the rail. Also make surethat it’s oriented the correct way beforeyou slide it onto the rail. So you can slidethe trolley onto the rail, slide it all theway down to that screwdriver. It’ll justsit there for the time being. Put the U-bracketin place. And if you have trouble doing this,you can use a rubber mallet to tap it ontothe rail. It might also help to have the garagedoor opener facing the right way.Take the ¼” bolt and lock washer/nut. Putit into the rail, and tighten it down. Thisis really important. Now there are a nut anda bolt on the top of the garage door openeritself. Loosen them using a socket wrench.Place the U-bracket over those holes, andtighten it down to the garage door openerusing that same exact socket wrench. I wantto say use the ½” drive for this. So makesure that they’re nice and snug. Don’tover-tighten them, but make sure that they’renice and snug.Now you’re going to install the idler pulley.It’s this little pulley that looks likethis, and it’s got a piece of tape on topof it. Feed the belt through that little windowin the front rail. Make sure that they haveabout 1’ of the belt in there. And thentake the nut, the washer, and the bolt forthe idler pulley. And that idler pulley, again,should have plenty of grease in it. If itdoesn’t, you should put the grease in thatlittle hole. Slide the bolt through, and tightendown the washer and the nut using a socketwrench or whatever tool you have on hand.Make sure that that’s tight enough suchthat the idler pulley isn’t going anywhere,but the pulley still has some play in it likeI’m showing here.What you want to do know is that tab, youwant to bend it upwards at a 90° using ascrewdriver. And if you need to, you can bendit even more using a set of pliers. Attachthe belt to the trolley like so. And thenwhat you’ll do next is make sure that thattrolley moves smoothly but also feed the beltaround the entire garage door opener, aroundthe pulley on the opposite end that’s actuallyattached to the garage door opener. Then you’llhave this pin system that you need to putin place to connect this spring and this rod.So take the rod out from the spring; you haveto unscrew it like so. And this has an orientationto it. There’s a flat side to it that fitsinto the frame of the trolley. And you wantto make sure that that’s oriented correctlybefore you attach this rod to the belt. Sojust double-check the orientation of thatrod. But again, take this pin system. Putit all together like I’m showing you here.And make sure that that rod is nice and tightbecause that’s what’s going to help pullthe belt along the rail system. Tighten thatdown. Re-screw the spring back in place. Makesure that it’s finger-tight so that youhave space between your finger and the beltand the rail. And just make sure the tensionis nice and good. Then what you’ll do isyou’ll tighten it down even more using awrench. And what that’ll do is that’llmake that spring pop by ¼” and tightenthe belt exactly to the right tension. Soagain, you’ll put a cap over the drive onthe garage door opener. Tighten it down usingthe two screws that come with it, and you’reon to the next step.Grab your level. Put it in the center of yourgarage door. And make a vertical pencil markon the header. Push the garage door up tothe highest position, then make a second horizontalmark that intersects your vertical pencilmark. You want to try to put the bracket inthe center of the door. But in this case,my garage door, there’s a ventilation shaftrunning right in the center where I wouldput the bracket for the actual garage dooropener. So I can’t mount it in the center.And the directions allow you to off-set ita certain amount. So follow your directionsfor off-setting any kind of mounting brackets.Again just make sure that that horizontalpencil mark intersects the center mark, oryou can move it over where you want to placethe support bracket. So in this case I neededto make a second horizontal pencil mark 2”above the first one because that’s wherethe bracket is going to go. Mark your pencilmarks. Drill the holes through your header.And then make sure that the bracket is facingup like so. What you’ll do is you’ll putthose lag screws into the holes by hand, thentighten them down either using an impact driveror socket wrench.Take your clevis pin and ring fastener; you’regoing to need these. Then lean the garagedoor opener up against that bracket that’son the header. So you can see my bracket’sa little off-set. Take the clevis pin, slideit through the bracket and through the garagedoor opener, and put the ring fastener inplace like I’m showing you right here. Thiswill allow the garage door opener to be niceand secure to the bracket.Place the garage door opener on a ladder.And then – I got kind of lucky here – Iwas able to put that same box underneath thenew one and support the new garage door openerwhile I repositioned the brackets on it. SoI was able to use these brackets and justslide them over to the left and to the rightand then secure them using my socket wrench.One thing I want to make perfectly clear isthat these support brackets need to be screwedinto joists, not just drywall, because that’ssuper dangerous. And eventually, your garagedoor opener will fall on top of your car oryou, so I wouldn’t want that to happen.So again, make sure that these brackets goinginto the ceiling are going into joists, arebeing secured to joists.Slide the emergency release rope through thetrolley, and make sure that the red handle’sfacing the correct way. There is a correctway for how it should be facing, but that’spretty simple. There should be a support bracketon your garage door. What you want to do ismake sure that your garage door is totallydown and flush with the floor. Pull down onthe emergency release rope. And there aretwo brackets that come with the garage dooropener: a straight one and a curved one. You’regoing to install the straight bracket firstinto the trolley using a clevis pin and ringfastener. It should look something like this.And it’ll just hang there while you attachthe curved arm to the bracket on your garagedoor. Again, you’ll just be using a clevispin and a ring fastener to do that.Now the straight arm can be very, very longespecially if you’ve got a set-up like mine.So I tried using a hacksaw to trim it accordingto the directions; that did not work so well.So I used my oscillating multi-tool to cutthrough it, and it worked awesome. So if youencounter the same thing, you may want touse your oscillating multi-tool to cut throughthat straight arm.Grab a nut, a washer, and a bolt. Actually,you’re going to need two to attach the straightarm and the curved arm together. You can hand-tightenthose and then tighten them down using a socketwrench because this is what pulls the garagedoor on the rail system.So re-engage the trolley like I did here,and put a light bulb or two into your garagedoor opener. You can wire it. And the coolthing about the Chamberlain system is thatthe wires just slide right into the terminals.It’s really, really simple. You’ll haveto follow the directions according to yourwiring set-up, though.Plug the garage door opener in. The lightbulbs will blink three or four times. Pressthe garage door opener and check and see howit runs along the track. In this case, itwas smooth, quiet, and worked out great. Sothat’s why I really, really like this particularChamberlain garage door opener.Well there you go. That’s how you do a garagedoor opener installation. Yours might be alittle bit different than mine because I’musing a Chamberlain. But again, these Chamberlaingarage door openers get a ton of awesome reviews,so you may want to check one out for yourself.And if you like this video and you think it’llhelp somebody else, go ahead and click onthe thumbs up button. That always helps becausenot only is it helping me, but it’s helpingsomebody else out to watch the video and maybethey’re going through the same DIY installation.So do that.And also, if you don’t mind, go ahead andsubscribe if you want more videos for yourselfand for your own home because a new DIY videocomes out every single Friday from me to you.And they’re meant to help you out and bea little bit fun in the process.So thanks for joining me today. I really appreciateyour time. I hope you have a good one. I’llsee you in the next video.\n"
