FAAC Welding & Fabrication Nationwide | Gatewood Fence & Gate

FAAC Welding & Fabrication: The Highland Park Owner’s Guide

We weld and fabricate FAAC gate components in Highland Park, and we do it with the gate still hanging in your driveway. A typical weld repair or fabrication job runs $180 to $450 installed, depending on what failed and whether we’re rebuilding a hinge mount, repairing a cracked operator arm, or reinforcing a gate frame that’s been sagging for years. Most owners discover the problem the same way: the gate starts dragging on the ground, makes a grinding noise when it moves, or stops closing flush against the post. That’s almost never the motor. It’s almost always metal fatigue at a weld point or a cracked bracket that the motor is now fighting against.

Call (325) 936-1371

Which FAAC Models This Applies To

We work on the full FAAC lineup that shows up in Highland Park driveways: the 400, 402, 412, 415, 422, and 770 swing-arm operators, plus the 390 and 391 underground units, and the S450H and S800H hydraulic operators. The welding points on these systems vary by model. The 400-series arms tend to crack at the clevis pin mount where the piston connects to the gate leaf. The 770 and S800H operators put more leverage on the gate itself, which means the frame welds at the hinge stile fail first. Identifying your part is straightforward: look for the black data plate on the operator housing. It lists the model and serial number. If the plate is unreadable or missing, measure the arm’s extended length and the diameter of the piston rod, and we can match it. For fabrication work, the decision between OEM FAAC parts and quality aftermarket comes down to this: FAAC OEM components are built to Italian spec and cost 30 to 50 percent more. A quality aftermarket bracket or fabricated plate, made from the same 1/4-inch steel and welded by someone who understands load path, will outlast the original part in Texas heat. We’ll tell you which one we’d put on our own gate.

One compatibility gotcha we see often: the FAAC 412 and 415 swing arms share a housing size, but the mounting bolt pattern differs by 12 millimeters. Order the wrong one and you’ll be drilling new holes in an expensive gate leaf. We match every mounting point to the actual gate before we weld or bolt anything.

Signs Your FAAC Welding & Fabrication Is Failing

• The gate sags toward the latch side. The hinge post or the frame weld at the hinge stile has fatigued. In Highland Park’s clay-heavy soil, posts shift with moisture, and that movement concentrates stress exactly where the weld is weakest. The sag isn’t in the middle of the gate, it’s at the hinge, even if it doesn’t look like it from the street.
• The operator arm creaks or pops when the gate opens. The piston rod end or the clevis bracket has developed play, usually from a worn pin or an elongated hole. The noise is metal on metal, and if you wait, the hole elongates further and the arm starts hammering the bracket.
• The gate stops short or overshoots. On FAAC systems, travel limits are set electronically, but when a weld at the gate frame or hinge point begins to fail, the geometry changes. The motor senses the changed resistance and the limits shift. It’s not a programming problem. It’s a structural problem the motor is trying to correct.
• Visible cracks in the gate frame or operator bracket. In Highland Park, we find hairline cracks at weld joints within five to seven years of installation, especially on steel gates that weren’t primed and sealed properly. A crack that starts as a hairline becomes a full separation inside one Texas summer. Heat expansion and contraction do the work for free.
• The gate shakes or vibrates when moving. A loose or cracked gate wheel, a broken frame weld, or a failing weld where the gate leaf meets the operator mounting plate can all cause vibration. FAAC operators are smooth by design. If your gate rattles while it moves, metal has already started separating somewhere.

Replacement Cost & What’s Included

Here’s what Highland Park work typically runs, installed, with us:

• Weld repair at a hinge or bracket mount: $180 to $320. Includes grinding out the failed weld, prepping the surfaces, re-welding with proper penetration, and a coat of rust-inhibiting primer.
• Fabricated replacement bracket or plate: $220 to $390. We cut, drill, and weld a new piece to match the FAAC geometry on your gate, then paint it to match the existing finish as closely as possible.
• Full gate frame reinforcement: $350 to $450. When the frame itself has multiple stress cracks, we add gussets at the corners or sister plates along the weak stile. This is the fix that prevents the next weld repair.

Every price is quoted and agreed before any work starts. You’ll see the number, you’ll approve it, and that’s the number on the invoice. The work carries our 90-Day Done Right Promise in writing: if the weld fails or the bracket shifts inside 90 days, we come back and make it right, no runaround. And if you’re over 65 or a veteran, the whole job is 10 percent off, permanently, no haggling.

DIY or Call Us?

You can safely check a few things yourself: look for visible cracks at the hinge stile, watch the gate while it moves to see where it’s flexing, and press on the operator arm to feel for play at the clevis pin. But that’s where the safe DIY ends. Welding on a gate that holds a FAAC operator is not something to attempt with a borrowed welder and a YouTube video. The gate weighs hundreds of pounds, it’s under spring tension in some configurations, and a bad weld can fail without warning while someone is walking through the opening. The operator arm itself is also under load from the hydraulic piston. We’ve fixed enough homeowner welds to say it plainly: the first weld is cheap compared to the second repair. If you have a cracked FAAC bracket or a sagging gate in Highland Park, call (325) 936-1371 and Hal Gatewood will come take a look. Tell him what it’s doing wrong and he’ll come see it, here’s his cell.

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