DIYbanter - Garage doors

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The cable that attaches to my garage door and then to the pulleys has
come off and wrapped itself around the bar or whatever it is that the
pulleys are attached to at the top. Is this something an amateur can
try to fix? If so, any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Kurt Ullman wrote:
The cable that attaches to my garage door and then to the pulleys has
come off and wrapped itself around the bar or whatever it is that the
pulleys are attached to at the top. Is this something an amateur can
try to fix? If so, any tips would be greatly appreciated.

I'm sure you'll get all sorts of warnings about how dangerous garage
door systems can be. They involve very large forces & stored energy,
they can hurt you. If you're not experienced, mechanically inclined /
handy....the chances are good that you might get hurt, worst case you
might get badly hurt or killed.

That said, DIY garage door repair is possible IF you're handy, careful
& have tools.

here's a very useful link to garage door info provided by Richard J.
Kinch

http://www.truetex.com/garage.htm

In fact his web page is so good I refer to it when I occasionaly have
to do door work....... to refresh my memory, so I can think through my
work sequence.

If you read, understand & feel comfortable with the info he provides by
all means you can proablably do it yourself.

I've done a few doors / springs & just recently had to re-adjust some
torsion springs. I have some proper home made winding rods, I'm
reasonably strong & the srping almost got away from me.

You\'ve got to BE CAREFUL if you have any doubt hire somebody or get an
experienced person to help you.

cheers
Bob

In article .com,
"BobK207" wrote:

Kurt Ullman wrote:
The cable that attaches to my garage door and then to the pulleys has
come off and wrapped itself around the bar or whatever it is that the
pulleys are attached to at the top. Is this something an amateur can
try to fix? If so, any tips would be greatly appreciated.

I'm sure you'll get all sorts of warnings about how dangerous garage
door systems can be. They involve very large forces & stored energy,
they can hurt you. If you're not experienced, mechanically inclined /
handy....the chances are good that you might get hurt, worst case you
might get badly hurt or killed.

That said, DIY garage door repair is possible IF you're handy, careful
& have tools.

Not really. It looks like the cables just slipped off the pullies. I
take it that this involves more than just wrapping the cables back
around the pullies and that things will have to be played with that are
likely to bite me.

Kurt Ullman writes:

The cable that attaches to my garage door and then to the pulleys has
come off and wrapped itself around the bar or whatever it is that the
pulleys are attached to at the top.

This is typically due to insufficient winding of the springs. In that
situation the springs go limp near the top of travel, then the torsion is
off the bar and thus the tension is off the cables, and the cables flex off
the drums. If it was working OK before, and nobody touched it, it is
likely that the setscrews on the spring-winding cones, or on the drum,
slipped on the torsion bar.

Is this something an amateur can try to fix?

Depends on the amateur. Someone else posted a link to my page.

look for worn bearings in the pulleys, they can cause drag that makes
the cables come off.

this happened here recently.

be certain to add safety cables so when a spring breaks it cant hit
anyone or anything

Easiest way (for a novice) would be to get some winding bars and remove the
tension completely from the springs, when the tension is off you can unravel
the cables then start at "Step 5" of the instructions at
http://www.garagedoorsupply.com/tors...tallation.html

You might want to consider using "cable keepers" to help keep the cables on
the drums.
You will find them he
http://www.garagedoorsupply.com/torsion-spring.html

Cables come off the drums due to a magnitude of reasons, most common is the
door could have gotten "snagged" on one side while the electric opener was
closing it or the door was closed on something underneath it causing one of
the cables to go slack momentarily. It doesn't take much to throw a cable
off the drum. It's also possible that one of the drums simply slipped on
the shaft, that's easy to determine by putting a level on the door while it
is in the closed position after the tension is put back onto the springs..
Like I said, there are many reasons as to why this happened, the trick is to
find the culprit inorder to prevent it from happening again.

Rich
====================================
Garage Door Parts, LLC
973-472-4818
http://www.garagedoorsupply.com
====================================

"Kurt Ullman" wrote in message
...
The cable that attaches to my garage door and then to the pulleys has
come off and wrapped itself around the bar or whatever it is that the
pulleys are attached to at the top. Is this something an amateur can
try to fix? If so, any tips would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks to all who replied. FWIW: I have decided that I am attached
to my fingers and other body parts and thus will call in a pro.