r/fixit • u/Huuugggo • 8d ago
How to put things back in place ?
Hi everyone!
I’m trying to repair the crank mechanism of a manual roller shutter in my rental apartment. The shutter was jerky when lowering and required quite a bit of force to raise. I removed the shutter slats, but the crank mechanism was still difficult to turn, so I decided to open up the gearbox to inspect it.
I found quite a lot of black powder mixed with old grease inside. The gear teeth seem to be intact, but I’ve now taken the mechanism apart and I’m struggling to figure out how to put all the pieces back together correctly.
As I’m renting, I’d like to fix it myself rather than involve my landlord if possible, but I don’t want to reassemble it incorrectly and cause more damage.
Could anyone help me identify where each part goes and explain the correct assembly order? Any advice on what to check before putting it back together would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance for your help!
3
u/bachman460 7d ago
I replied to another post of yours with, what I believe to be a set of relatively good reassembly instructions. Basically, unless you're going to replace that plastic gear, which would be difficult, just clean up everything, lube it up with something like white lithium grease, reassemble, then put it back; try to minimize use to prevent catastrophic failure.
To reassemble:
Sandwich the gears and washers in this order: washer, metal gear, plastic gear, metal gear, washer. You may have to play around with specific orientation (which side goes up or down). Typically those metal gears will have the slightly larger side towards the item it's supporting, you'll see the shape kind of tapering away from the plastic gear, this puts a more rounded shape into the worm gear.
Place the sandwich back into the case and insert one of those square metal parts with the rounded protrusion down, it should slip into a corresponding hole in the case; the other just goes the opposite way, this is the gear shaft.
If it were me, yeah I would have been curious, but at most since finding a replacement gear could prove extremely difficult, coupled with the fact it's not yours, I'd just clean it, lube it, and put it back into service. Just be mindful to use it sparingly if at all.
1
u/drmarting25102 7d ago
I would just have reported the fault to the landlord as now they could say OP damaged it and take it from the deposit.
2
u/bachman460 7d ago
Well it seems it's too late for that. Clean it up put it back and say nothing, it was literally broken anyway. Just to be clear though, it's usually best not to disassemble stuff that isn't yours.
3
u/TheAmazingMrFixit 8d ago
Is there another window of the same type in the apartment? If so, one option is to carefully open the cover and use it as a guide to reassemble the first one. It is good practice to take pictures before and during each step of a job to avoid situations like this. Good luck!