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Before
AfterLinear Gate Motor Replacement: The Fort Worth Owner’s Guide
We stock and install Linear-compatible gate motors across Fort Worth, with most swing-gate motor replacements running between $850 and $1,450 installed, depending on the model and whether your arm bracket and mounting plate are still intact. Most Linear replacements we handle are completed same-day when the part is on the truck, which it usually is for the LRA and APeX series. The call usually starts the same way: the gate worked fine yesterday. Today it hums, or clicks, or doesn’t respond at all, and the keypad just blinks at you.
Here’s what we see on the ground in Fort Worth: Linear swing-arm operators fail in predictable ways, and most of them are repairable if you catch the symptom early. The arm seizes. The capacitor burns out. The limit switch drifts. The control board gets cooked by a power surge off a Texas thunderstorm. When the motor itself is gone, replacement is the honest call, and that’s what this page walks through.
Which Linear Models This Applies To
The Linear brand covers a lot of ground, but in residential Fort Worth we mostly see three lines: the LRA swing-gate operators (the LRA-S and LRA-D are the workhorses on wrought-iron driveway gates in Westover Hills and Mira Vista), the APeX series (APeX-5 through APeX-9, common on newer installations), and the older M-series and S-series units still running on gates installed fifteen to twenty years ago. Each takes a different motor assembly, and the mounting patterns don’t cross over.
The fastest way to identify what you have is to open the control box and read the label on the motor itself. It’ll show a part number like LRA-MOTOR-KIT or APX-MOTOR-24VDC. If the label is gone, which happens often on west-facing installations where sun and heat have baked the plastic, we measure the shaft height, the mounting bolt pattern, and the voltage. One gotcha we run into regularly: the older LRA motors run on 24V AC, while the APeX line is 24V DC. They look close enough to confuse a first-timer, but wiring one to the wrong board takes out both the motor and the control board. We carry OEM Linear replacement motors and a short list of quality aftermarket equivalents we’ve tested on our own jobs. For Linear specifically, we lean OEM on control boards and aftermarket only on mechanical parts like arm brackets and clevis pins, where the aftermarket steel is actually heavier than what shipped originally.
Signs Your Linear Gate Motor Replacement Is Failing
- Hum but no movement. The capacitor that starts the motor has failed. The motor’s getting power, but it can’t build enough torque to move the gate. This is the most common failure we see on Linear operators over five years old, and in Fort Worth’s heat, capacitors cook faster than the manufacturer’s rating suggests.
- Gate starts, then reverses halfway. The current-sensing circuit is tripping because the motor is drawing more amps than it should. That’s usually a failing bearing inside the motor or a gearbox running dry. We see this a lot on gates that were installed without sealant at the arm pivot, letting water into places it doesn’t belong.
- Intermittent dead gate that works again after a reset. The motor’s thermal overload switch is cutting out because the windings are overheating. Resetting the breaker buys you a few more weeks, but the motor is telling you it’s at the end of its service life.
- Grinding or clacking from the operator arm. The internal gear train is worn. On Linear LRA units, the nylon gear was designed to be the sacrificial part, but when it strips, the metal drive gear chews against the housing and ruins the motor shaft. At that point you’re replacing the whole arm, not just the gear.
- Gate moves slower than it did last year. This one’s subtle, and most owners don’t notice until a visitor comments on it. The motor is losing torque, usually because the brushes are worn down or the armature is failing. On a 12-year-old Linear, this is the retirement symptom, and it’s cheaper to replace the motor assembly now than to wait for it to seize mid-cycle with the gate across the driveway.
BeforeAfterReplacement Cost & What’s Included
In Fort Worth, a Linear gate motor replacement runs $850 to $1,450 installed for most swing-gate applications. The range comes down to a few variables: whether you have the LRA series (lower end) or an APeX unit (higher end), whether the arm bracket and mounting plate can be reused, and whether we need to re-run control wiring that sun exposure or a lawn mower has chewed through. If the control board has also failed, which happens when the motor shorts out hard, we’ll tell you that on the spot and add it as a separate line item before any work starts.
Here’s what you get for that number: the replacement motor assembly, removal of the old unit, installation and alignment of the new one, limit switch setting, and a full-cycle test with the safety edges and photo-eyes verified. We write the price down and hand it to you before we touch a tool. No discovery fees, no surprise line items at the end. The work is covered under our 365-Day Done Right Promise: if the replacement isn’t right, we make it right at no charge within a full year.
DIY or Call Us?
There’s a short list of things an owner can safely check before calling: confirm the breaker isn’t tripped, confirm the keypad or remote has fresh batteries, and visually inspect the arm bracket for obvious cracks. Those take five minutes and cost nothing.
Replacing a Linear gate motor is not on the safe-to-DIY list. These units involve line-voltage wiring inside the control box, and the motor assembly itself holds a charged capacitor even after power is disconnected. Open the wrong cap and you’ll feel it. We’ve also been called out to more than one Fort Worth driveway where a homeowner got the motor mounted but couldn’t set the limit switches correctly, and the gate slammed through the end of its travel stroke until something expensive snapped. If you’re unsure, call us at (817) 476-9945 and we’ll talk through what you’re seeing. The estimate is free, and if it turns out to be a $40 capacitor instead of a $900 motor, that’s what we’ll tell you.
FAQs
Most Linear swing-gate motors in the Fort Worth area run between 8 and 14 years before the motor itself fails. Our heat and humidity shorten that window compared to national averages, especially for gates on unshaded western exposures where the control box bakes in afternoon sun. Components like capacitors and limit switches usually go first, around the 5-to-7-year mark, and those are replaceable without a full motor swap.
Sometimes. If the failure is a capacitor, a limit switch, or a worn gear, we can repair the existing motor for a few hundred dollars. If the windings have shorted or the armature is damaged, repair costs approach 70 to 80 percent of replacement cost, and at that point we’ll tell you the honest numbers and let you decide. Our job is to give you the written facts, not to sell a replacement you don’t need.
Most Linear motor replacements we handle take between 90 minutes and two and a half hours on site. The variable is usually the condition of the existing mounting and wiring. If the bracket is rusted through or the conduit is cracked, we’ll add the time to do it right and document what we found. If the part is on the truck, which it typically is for LRA and APeX units, we can usually complete the job the same day you call.
We stock the most common Linear replacement motors and internal parts on our service trucks: LRA motor kits, APeX motor assemblies, capacitors, limit switches, and arm brackets. For less common Linear models, we source through our supplier network and can usually have parts within 24 to 48 hours. We also carry parts for LiftMaster, Mighty Mule, and Ghost Controls systems, so if you have a mixed setup or aren’t sure what’s on the gate, we can identify it on site.
If your Linear gate motor is making noise, moving slow, or not moving at all, call us at (817) 476-9945. We’ll diagnose it, hand you a written price, and get it running again, usually the same day. A live person answers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Name what you found. Name what it costs. Name what you left behind.
Written by Adrian Vance, Owner, Vance Gate Repair Fort Worth at Vance Gate Repair Fort Worth, serving Fort Worth and nearby areas.