GCG950-03 General Electric Trash Compactor

If the drawer is stuck because the piston is in it, you will have to take the back off to lift the piston in order to remove the drawer.

With the drawer out, tip the compactor on its back to easily maneuver the otherwise heavy piston. Working from the front remove the trunnion nut cover (two hex screws) and then the bad trunnio ... Read more n. You may need to move the front of the piston up or down to release the nut.
Remove all the debris and wipe the shaft from old grease and debris.
Grease the shaft with supplied grease. With the piston about 1/3 of the way down, screw the new trunnion nut until it touches the housing. Move the front of the piston up or down to seat the nut. Put the nut cover back on and screw it in position.
The whole job took less than 30 minutes.

The problem with this repair arises after you have removed the old trunion nut and you are trying to get the new one to seat into the narrow bracket that surrounds it and keeps it from turning. You can only screw the trunion nut on so far and then it runs into the edges of the bracket. I found that by aligning the new trunion nut at the p ... Read more roper angle and then jacking the compacting ram up a few inches with an automotive jack from the car, the trunion nut is forced into place and then you can put the facing bracket back on and you are done.

I actually pulled the entire motorized unit out of the case, not knowing what the problem was. I found that the old nylon trunnion nut was stripped. I ordered two replacement trunnion nuts in case the replacement stripped out also. (However, the manufacturer has replaced the old nylon nut with a threaded metal unit that should never st ... Read more rip so I goofed when I ordered 2. )

I removed the nut retainer, cleaned off the main drive screw, applied the supplied grease to the drive screw and the new trunnion nut and then reassembled the compactor. In actuality I didn't need to remove the entire power unit and would have only needed to remove the back panel of the compactor to reach the nut retainer.