My workhorse printer is a Brother MFC-7820N. I’ve had it since 2007. Over the past month, I’ve had constant paper jams. I tried cleaning the pickup roller that feeds the paper from the paper tray. That didn’t do squat. I figured it was time to buy a new printer, so I researched the current Brother models. For some reason, Brother hasn’t updated their MFC line in several years. I really didn’t want to buy outdated technology, so I took to Google to see if there was a fix. Sure enough, there’s one post on the web describing my problem. I am providing the link here, to give credit where credit is due. Much thanks to Oleg Andrukh!
My jamming problem did not involve sheets that got crumpled up like an accordion. (That’s a more common jamming problem.) In my case, it seems as if two sheets of paper were fed from the tray at once. The second sheet would get jammed in the internal paper path. The root cause of the problem is that a plastic clutch was sticking against a protective foam pad. This pad isn’t supposed to be sticky. It turned sticky over the years. The solution is to put a piece of tape over the pad. Problem solved!
This repair isn’t for the faint of heart. The left panel of the printer needs to be removed, as well as a gear. Oleg doesn’t mention this, but in order to remove the gear, there is a plastic tab next to the axle that needs to be depressed with your fingernail. This YouTube video explains the procedure to remove the gear. (Watch until 3:20. No need to replace the pickup roller with this particular jamming issue.) Don’t forget to unplug the printer from the AC if you attempt this!
33 replies on “Fix for Brother MFC-7820N paper jamming”
THanks for this great solution. Works perfectly.
Thanks so much for this fix!!!
Took me approx. 15 minutes and a little piece of tape!
Who would of thought.
I was ready to buy a new MFC but thanks to you guys I don’t need to.
Already bought a new Canon multi, but used this tip to fix the old one, can use it elsewhere. Thanks!
Dan, Thanks for your help, it worked for me, great idea!!!
This didn’t fix my problem, but only because I didn’t realize that I had a different problem. It turns out that I actually had the much more common problem of dirty paper rollers, and all I had to do was clean them with a moist cloth.
I’m not posting this to discourage anybody from trying your fix; it sounds like it works for a lot of people. (In fact, I’m leaving that piece of tape in place in hopes of preventing future problems.) I just want to give folks a heads-up about trying the much simpler fix of cleaning the rollers first.
Thanks Dan! It worked. My printer would print just one sheet; then jam. It was easy to fix after reading your post and watching the YouTube video.
For those who don’t see the thin black foam stopper — it’s mounted below the white spring-loaded clutch, see the YouTube video at 3:06 — look at the bottom of the image below the black gear and down from his pointer finger — you can barely see it in that frame — but put tape on the surface of that black foam piece to prevent it from sticking to the plastic clutch.
If that’s not clear, the “plastic clutch” is the white piece below the black gear. You can also see it at 3:00 in the video — look for the spring near the right edge of the printer and below the black gear. To the left of the spring, you’ll see the black foam piece that is sticking.
You may not have to remove the black plastic gear — as you can insert a thin piece of tape and use the clutch to press it down on top of the sticking foam. If you remove the black gear, just remember to pull back the “locking plastic spring” (left pointer finger fingernail is touching it at 3:06 in the video) — it’s a flexible piece that hugs the steel shaft about which the black gear rotates.
thank. I think that protective foam to remove sound click was a bad idea in project. I now like the sound click and after the click the paper is fed ok.
Thanks Dan, it seems to have worked great, and the fix wasn’t that bad at all. I actually retrieved this machine from the curb. My neighbor was discarding it, I’m sure because of the paper jamming.
Cheers.
Lee is right. I had the same problem. It turns out that I actually had the much more common problem of dirty paper rollers, and all I had to do was clean them with a moist cloth.
No need to buy new roller kit. I printer started working fine, after I cleaned the paper roller with a cloth.
I had the one page at a time problem also….Thanks for clearing up which “foam stopper” was the culprit Francis…I just ripped the piece of plastic off instead of putting tape over it…so far it’s worked (after printing a 15 pages in a row test). Shame that I almost dumped a whole printer in a landfill for that little piece…here’s to hopefully many more copies! Also, getting the Black gear with the attached Spring back on and in the RIGHT position was tricky…still not sure what I did to fix that but after a few tries it’s working.
Thanks for the tip. Took all of 5 minutes. I had it in the garage and my wife needed a printer for school. I saw this and went straight to garage and got it.
Perfection!! I am mechanically brain dead. But with your picture and the YouTube video, I did it!!!!!!! It works. OMG! I can’t believe it. My workhorse printer is back. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Thanks a ton. It solved the problem.
This is FREAKING GENIUS. thank you so much for posting this. Took all of 5 minutes and worked like a charm.
Francis’s description, above is very helpful. After you remove the large black gear, the ‘clutch’ is a white bar running horizontally below the clutch. When it goes down (towards the floor if the printer were upright) it hits the offending ‘foam pad’. I was able to use tweezers to insert a small piece of Scotch tape to cover the pad.
Back in business.
Thank you Dan, That is very clever, I think that is called relay, when that black gear turns, it supposed to turn 360 for the second sheet but that relay stuck then jam.
Thank. . . .YOU! I had seen references to a sticky cam in YouTube how-tos for other printers, but nothing for the 7820N, and your explanation put it all together and showed me where it was. I had been without a printer for 4 months, and a repair shop quoted me $176 to “repair” it. Now, with zero money spent, I can print again! Yayyy!! Thanks, bro.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I had the print one page and jam issue as well. Was feeding sheets individually while saving up for a new printer. Now, I can use that money for something else.
Thank you so much. Worked for me too!
Great! Both my father and I bought the MFC-7820N years ago. The printers both developed the same paper jamming problem at a similar time. He threw his away and bought a new one. I persevered as I had no long bough a new toner cartridge and thanks to your post now have a jam-free printer again! Many thanks for taking the time to post.
Will this work for the MFC-7360 too?
Another success story. This solution worked great on my Brother printer from 2016. I used tweezer to put the tape on as well. Thank you for this post and for Oleg for figuring it out originally.
4 years later and the fix is still good! MFC 7820N
Wow! Brilliant solution. I was about to give up on this printer. Works great now. Thanks!
Your solution helped me fix mine, but it was a different jam. My Brother 7820n was not picking up the paper consistently and would jam at the paper tray feed. There is a cork type pad by the first pickup roller on the tray – it seemed a little sticky (not much though) – put a piece of scotch tape over it and so far it’s working perfectly.
Just confirming that this STILL works!
My printer just suddenly started picking up multiple sheets of paper (typically 2), the 2nd one getting jammed half-way thru. This is the ONE thing that fixed it.
So lucky I found this. Was about to toss it out the window. Spread the word!
A piece of tape! That is the second time a piece of tape has done the job. The other was a piece of black tape over the lens so that the end of life toner lock would stop preventing me from printing.
Roger, A piece of tape has done the job for second time… How about scrape off the black tape. No more sticking! only the plastic white clutch under the large black gear is contacting the black tape. the black tape, foam or cork does not serve a purpose. I remove the black tape and no more jamming paper.
Thank you Thank you Thank you. Took me forever to find that black pad. lol. I was expecting find some big pad. I’m like what are they freaking talking about?? Thank you Francis for the clarification in your reply!!!
This worked brilliantly for my MFC 7820N. So grateful I came across this post, a really simple fix in the end, with thanks to Dan and Francis.
I just applied this fix to my 2006 Brother MFC 7820N. Works!!! Happy Camper here. Thanks for sharing!
So glad I stumbled on this post for my MFC-7820N paper jam problem when using the paper tray. It only took about 10 minutes to fix it!
thank you so much. saved me from buying a new printer. took 10 min!
Thanks a lot! It got me started to investigate my issue, which was different. My Brother 7820n was not picking up the paper consistently and would jam at the paper tray feed (same as John). There is a cork type pad by the first pickup roller on the tray side – it seemed a little not too sticky (not much though) – put a piece of scotch tape over it and so far it’s working perfectly. Now it’s maybe too smooth as the printer takes two sheets at the same time from time to time.