Linear Gate Motor Replacement Nationwide | Gatewood Fence & Gate

Linear Gate Motor Replacement: The Arlington Owner’s Guide

We stock and install Linear-compatible gate motors for most swing and slide gate systems, with typical installed replacement running $850 to $1,450 in Arlington depending on the model and whether the control board needs swapping too. Most Linear motor replacements are done the same day we diagnose the failure, since we keep the common residential units on the truck. You usually find out the motor is gone the way one of our customers on the southwest side did last month: the gate starts moving slower than it should, then one afternoon it just hums and doesn’t budge, and you’re suddenly lifting a 400-pound gate by hand in the rain.

Call (817) 241-4067

Which Linear Models This Applies To

The Linear gate motors we replace most often around Arlington are the LRA, HAE, and MegaCode series, but we work on everything Linear has put out since the early 2000s. The gotcha with Linear is that the internal gear train changed between the HAE and LRA lines, so a motor that looks nearly identical on the outside won’t bolt up or mesh correctly if the replacement is the wrong generation. Your best move is to send us a photo of the model plate before we come out – it’s usually a white or silver sticker on the side of the motor housing with the model number printed in black. We read the plate, not the guesswork.

We’re an independent shop, not affiliated with Linear, which means we carry both OEM Linear parts and quality aftermarket equivalents. For motors specifically, we lean OEM because Linear’s soft-start ramp is tuned to the factory feedback loop, and aftermarket boards don’t always replicate that with the same torque curve. If your budget is tighter, a bare motor without the board and a reprogrammed existing board is a legitimate option we’ll talk you through honestly.

Signs Your Linear Gate Motor Replacement Is Failing

• The gate hums but won’t move. The motor is getting voltage but the internal gear wasn’t built to overpower a hinge that’s been binding for six months. By the time it hums, the gear is usually already chewed.
• Movement is slower than it used to be, especially in the morning. Capacitor failure in the Linear start circuit reduces the torque available at the first inch of travel. It gets worse as the capacitor degrades, which is most of them fail in Arlington heat within 3 to 5 years.
• The gate stops halfway and reverses. The Linear motor’s thermal sensor is shutting it down before the winding cooks itself. The cause is almost always the motor pulling too many amps because the gate’s weight or the hinge drag has increased.
• A burnt electrical smell near the control box. That’s the varnish on the motor windings breaking down. Once you smell it, the motor is done. Don’t run it again, because the next cycle can arc through the board and turn a motor replacement into a board replacement.
• The opener trips the breaker repeatedly. Repeat trips are the motor drawing locked-rotor current on a stalled gate. We see this in Arlington neighborhoods with older ornamental steel that has absorbed an extra 100 pounds of water and rust over 20 years.

Replacement Cost & What’s Included

Here’s what a Linear gate motor replacement costs in Arlington, installed:

• Basic Linear motor swap (LRA series, no board replacement): $850 to $975
• Linear HAE motor with control board replacement: $1,100 to $1,450
• Slide gate motor (Linear MegaCode series): $1,200 to $1,600, including chain or rail adjustment

The range comes down to two things: which model you have, and whether the board survived the motor failure. If the board is fine, you save roughly $250 to $350. We quote the price before we touch a wrench and we don’t change it at the door. Every motor replacement includes labor, new hardware, and torque calibration to the actual weight of your gate. And the whole job carries our 90-Day Done Right Promise in writing. If it’s not right, one call brings Hal Gatewood back.

DIY or Call Us?

If you want to do something useful while you decide, you can check the obvious stuff: is the breaker tripped, is the gate physically binding on the ground, are the hinges making noise. Those are the checks that cost you nothing. What we don’t recommend is opening the motor housing or the control board on a Linear unit you still want to keep. The capacitor inside a Linear motor holds a charge even after the power is off, and the board’s high-voltage side will bite you if your hand lands wrong. Even after the power is off, we discharge the capacitor before we pull the cover. That’s not a YouTube-optional step.

If you’re reasonably handy and the hinge is dragging, that’s a real repair you can tackle. But the motor itself, on a gate that might weigh 600 pounds and will fail in a position that blocks your driveway at the worst time, is a job we’d rather do right the first time. Call (817) 241-4067 and we’ll give you a straight answer on what you’re looking at.

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