jeff_wisnia wrote:
...
I've torched and bent new hook ends on those springs more than once and
they held up quite a while. Particularly on springs which had a sharp
bend where the hook joined the spring coils. Those bends looked like a
sure stress producer to me.

Oh, so you've done it too. That sharp bend pretty much guarantees a
break. I'm thinking that the attach-er I made wouldn't produce much a
stress riser at all.

If you buy new springs to replace those rusty ones you've got to match
the strength of the new springs to the weight of the door. Judging from
the amount of rust in your photos you probably won't be able to read the
color coding (if any) on those springs.

No, but I have a record of the door weight, somewhere. I think.

An easy way to measure the weight of the door if you don't have a scale
which will accept that much weight is to use a bathroom scale an a
lever made from a couple of feet of 2 by 4 with one end on a small
piece of wood on the center of the scale platform and the other end on a
brick or something the same height as the scale platform.

Position that rig so the center of the 2 by 4 is under the bottom edge
of the door when it's down. With both springs disconnected (get a helper
if needed) lower the door onto the center of the 2 by 4. The scale
reading will be half the door's weight. If the scale still tops out move
the rig so that the door hits the 2 by 4 one third of its length from
the "brick end" and multiply the scale reading by 3.

That would work, but my bathroom scale always reads _way_ high G.

Thanks,
Bob