On Tue, 29 Apr 2008 05:29:29 -0700 (PDT), stryped
wrote:

I received a single 7x9 clopay garage door from someone replacing
their door. It has all the hardware and even the installation
instructions. I have been for a week trying to “retrofit” it to my
12x16 shed.

I have the track installed and can manually move it up or down but
have tried and tried and cant get the torsion spring to work in
helping with raising and lowering the door. I have done it countless
times all that ends up happening is the wire on the pulleys on both
ends end up “birdnesting” and going everywhere. Yesterday it actually
helped bull it up before it finally birdnested.

What can I do? Would having one pulley slightly higher than the other
cause this problem? I have had to do the best job I could with the
limited room I have.

Another thing I noticed is when I manually raise the door, the bottom
roller seems to be in a different place on the track on one side
verses the other. I measured the tracks on both sides though and they
seem to be the same height.

One last thing when I put it all the way up the end of the door just
barely touched a support on my shed roof. Just enough where the door
wants to come down rather than stay in the upright position. Is there
something I can add or do to keep the door up?

Anyway I appreciate any help as this is driving me nuts and my wife is
tired of me spending all my time on this!

The aircraft cable isn't just winding onto a plain spool, it's
following a varying radius tracking snail groove so that the force
goes down as the door goes up and approaches the end of the run, to
equalize the assistance needed. Otherwise you'd have to fight to get
it started and then fight to slow it down at the top.

The track has to be square and level in the doorway, there can't be
any obstructions to full travel, and the spring crossbar has to be at
the right height and square to the door.

If the door gets cockeyed and the aircraft cable on one side goes
slack it will bird-nest on you every time. Same thing if the cable
drums are not in line with the pull points on the door, that track can
only handle a few degrees of misalignment before the cable derails
from the groove.

If you've got structural parts in the way at the ceiling level,
you'll have to move them. Make another brace farther back, or put a
crossbar under the door path (that will clear the door) to take the
load the brace used to. Those steel sheds usually are engineered
really close to the edge on strength, don't start removing without
replacing.

And as to getting the spring crossbar mounted in the right place,
you might have to take down the door and remount it after using 2X8 or
2X12 lumber on the inside to simulate the normal garage door 4X8 or
4X12 header beam and 2X6 vertical to simulate the 4X6 king posts, and
take angle brackets and concrete anchors to transfer the weight to the
slab. (If no slab, dig a hole and make some sort of a concrete
footing there, same reason.)

May need to have 1X planks or plywood filler shims cut to go around
the seams of the steel door header and posts on the inside, so the
'new' header and posts are flat, level and square...

I'll bet you tried to modify the mounting locations to pick up on
the steel shed skin & seams, and that simply isn't going to work right
- and then the skin is going to fail around the brackets because it
wasn't meant to have those point loads there. Adding the wood will
spread the loads out over a much larger area and to many small screws.

WARNING: Be VERY careful when installing or removing that tension
spring - it can and will take your head clean off if you screw up.
You won't like it, and SWMBO won't be too thrilled either.

-- Bruce --