For most of you on a.h.r, these lessons will be old hat; but for those of
you (like I was) who have never relocated a torsion spring, these lessons
may come in handy in the future.

WHAT DO MOST GARAGE DOOR COMPANIES DO:
- Most charge around $150 to $200 and will do a great job.
- Most promise same day and next-day service.
- I could do the entire job in an hour - so I'm sure they can too.
- Most will simply replace the old spring with the same size new spring.
- Some will 'upgrade' the spring to a longer-life spring (others won't).
- Some may charge for that longer-life upgrade; others won't.
- Most will adjust and lubricate the door and GDO as a bonus to you.
- Some may try to sell you useless extras, such as galvanized springs or
warranties (the 800 numbers I called were the worst offenders).

MAINTENANCE:
- Snap a picture today of your torsion spring setup (I wish I had this).
- Lubricate the garage door rollers, hinges, GDO mechanism, and torsion
bar bearings (two to three of those bearings may be installed).
- Check that the door is parallel when raised and vertical when lowered.
- Operate the door by hand to check spring balance at multiple positions.
- Close the door and check for tilt by looking for light at the bottom.

RESEARCH:
- I've watched EVERY torsion spring DIY on YouTube and none beat DDM
Garage Doors - so all you need is the ddmgaragedoors.com web site.
- The Richard Kinch truetex web site is the second site you'll need.
- No other web sites are needed although I've read EVERY alt.home.repair
thread that mentions garage doors that I can find in the groups.google.com
archive and while there is 'some' really good information on a.h.r - most
of the threads also contain contradictory garbage, and therefore you must
take every thread with a grain of salt.

REPLACEMENT:
- Replacing a torsion spring is easy and requires basic tools.
- The only special tool are two 18" long 1/2" diameter winding bars.
- A few open end wrenches and a large vise grip is all else you'll need.
- Basically, to remove a single broken torsion spring you climb on your
stepladder, unbolt the two set bolts on the winding cone and remove the
two nuts on the spring end plate side. After marking the location of the
cable drums on the torsion rod, you loosen the set bolts on both cable
drums, and then you simply slide the broken torsion spring off the
torsion rod, leaving the torsion rod at the top of the door and only
removing the one cable drum on the side away from the spring anchor plate.
- Basically, to replace the torsion spring, you side the spring onto the
torsion rod, add a bearing if desired, line up the cable drum prior marks
and tighten the cable drums snug against the bearing end plates and
insert the cables holding them in place with a vice grip tensioning the
tension bar and then proceed to wind the spring. When wound the
prescribed 30 quarter turns (7 1/2 full turns for a 7 foot tall door),
you push out the spring about a quarter inch, and then tighten the
winding cone set bolts. Then you check and adjust and lubricate the
hinges, rollers, bearings, and GDO mechanism.
- If it's a two-spring system, the only additional initial step is to
unwind the unbroken spring before touching anything. Unwinding the old
spring is even easier than winding the new spring and is simply the
reverse operation of 30 quarter turns (7 1/2 full turns) for a 7 foot
tall door.

DANGER:
- I searched the news.google.com archives for gory stories of residential
homeowners being hurt or killed by winding garage door springs at home,
and, I just couldn't find much. This doesn't indicate much other than
it's not a big newsworthy topic I guess - but it's a datapoint.
- EVERY (and I mean every) site says it's dangerous - just as chain saws
and table saws and 220 volt motors and swimming pools are dangerous when
accidents happen - so I'll repeat what the sites say. It is dangerous.
- Winding torsion springs is dangerous because "something can go wrong",
and because "something can break".
- However, having said that, if you take normal precautions against both
of those possibilities, you too can (easily) wind a torsion spring.
- There are plenty of things NOT to do, by the way, when winding torsion
springs ... but the list of things to do are well spelled out at the DDM
Garage Door web site.
- Personally, at no point did I "feel" dire danger, especially after
having removed and reinstalled my torsion spring a half-dozen times. It
became 'almost' routine (therein lies the biggest danger, I suspect, to
garage door repairmen).
- The amount of force needed to wind a 0.250" 36" long torsion spring
with 18" steel bars is well within the strength of a normal man.

THEORY:
- The torsion spring acts like a counterweight to balance the
(appreciable) weight of the door.
- The GDO merely pushes the door open or closed - and in and of itself
does NOT open the door.
- The only lateral movement, assuming the cable drums are tightened
against the bearing end plates, as the door goes up and down is merely
the distance between the coils of the springs.
- Everything else should be locked down tightly (which was my problem).
- In general, the garage door repair company skimps on the springs, by
default, by giving you a 10,000 cycle spring.
- You can ask for longer cycle springs, which, if you keep to the same
inside diameter, are merely thicker gauge wire.
- The only thing that matters is the IPPT (inch pounds per turn) that you
need. Your garage door has a weight and a track & drum geometry that
determines the IPPT you need. Period.
- So, whatever new springs you put on must exert the same IPPT as the old
springs. Period.
- Most people want longer-lasting springs, so, all you need is either a
wider inside diameter spring with the same IPPT or a thicker gauge spring
with the same IPPT.
- In general, you likely won't opt for a wider ID so your choice is
merely a thicker gauge spring.
- Adding a second spring does NOT in any way improve your number of
cycles (only the spring geometry makes a difference in lifetime).
- Adding a second spring has some benefits - but they're relatively minor.
- Your limiting factor in improving lifetime will be how much room you
have as thicker-gauge springs with the same ID and IPPT will be longer
than the original.

Adding a second spring significantly reduces or eliminates the severity of the force with which the garage door comes down on a person or a vehicle if the single spring breaks. Some technicians will want to replace your double spring with a single spring so they don’t have to go back to the shop to get another spring. Don’t let them.

On Fri, 07 Dec 2012 15:18:29 -0800, recyclebinned wrote:

Adding a second spring significantly reduces ...
the severity of the force with which the garage door comes down

Agreed!

That reduced-severity action actually works both ways.

1. When the door is going down (as you noted).
And,
2. When the door is coming up:
When a single broken spring, especially when it breaks near the
stationary cone, can cause the torsion bar to spin violently such that
there can be damage the top part of the door and to the cables.

In addition, two-spring systems balance the forces on the two cable
drums, which is important for systems (like mine) with weak cable drum
support to start with.

Two springs also enable the advantage that MORE SPRING SIZES (i.e.,
thicknesses) are instantly available to the homeowner, who then has more
options to choose springs of the desired life cycles.

A minor advantage of two-spring systems is that winding each one is half
the work of winding a single-spring system; but that's a one-time bonus.

Of course, two spring systems typically being longer (combined) than
single-spring systems have disadvantages too (e.g., they take up more
room so that you may have to move the spring anchor plate, they can cost
more, there are more things to break and replace, they can be heavier,
etc.).

All in all, very few professional installers told me by phone that they
would change out my single-spring system for a two-spring system, and,
Dan Musick advised me against it (even though his web site explains all
that I've said above).

Nonetheless, if you wish to convert from one spring to two, this handy
calculator tells you all that you need to know!
http://ddmgaragedoors.com/springs/st...s.php#database

For example, here is my current spring:
$51.56 36,000 cycles 0.250"x36" 14.14 pounds Lift=123.3# SPB-250-36-00R

If I converted that to two springs, Dan's site recommends:
$34.56 77,000 cycles 0.207"x28.5" 9.09 pounds Lift=61.9# SPB-207-28-50R
$34.56 77,000 cycles 0.207"x28.5" 9.09 pounds Lift=61.9# SPB-207-28-50L

So, the two-spring system would only cost about $15 more and would weigh
only about 4 pounds more, yet it would lift the same 123 pound door and
each spring would last more than twice as long as my single spring system.

On Dec 7, 1:31*pm, "Danny D." wrote:
For most of you on a.h.r, these lessons will be old hat; but for those of
you (like I was) who have never relocated a torsion spring, these lessons
may come in handy in the future.

WHAT DO MOST GARAGE DOOR COMPANIES DO:
- Most charge around $150 to $200 and will do a great job.
- Most promise same day and next-day service.
- I could do the entire job in an hour - so I'm sure they can too.
- Most will simply replace the old spring with the same size new spring.
- Some will 'upgrade' the spring to a longer-life spring (others won't).
- Some may charge for that longer-life upgrade; others won't.
- Most will adjust and lubricate the door and GDO as a bonus to you.
- Some may try to sell you useless extras, such as galvanized springs or
warranties (the 800 numbers I called were the worst offenders).

MAINTENANCE:
- Snap a picture today of your torsion spring setup (I wish I had this).
- Lubricate the garage door rollers, hinges, GDO mechanism, and torsion
bar bearings (two to three of those bearings may be installed).
- Check that the door is parallel when raised and vertical when lowered.
- Operate the door by hand to check spring balance at multiple positions.
- Close the door and check for tilt by looking for light at the bottom.

RESEARCH:
- I've watched EVERY torsion spring DIY on YouTube and none beat DDM
Garage Doors - so all you need is the ddmgaragedoors.com web site.
- The Richard Kinch truetex web site is the second site you'll need.
- No other web sites are needed although I've read EVERY alt.home.repair
thread that mentions garage doors that I can find in the groups.google.com
archive and while there is 'some' really good information on a.h.r - most
of the threads also contain contradictory garbage, and therefore you must
take every thread with a grain of salt.

REPLACEMENT:
- Replacing a torsion spring is easy and requires basic tools.
- The only special tool are two 18" long 1/2" diameter winding bars.
- A few open end wrenches and a large vise grip is all else you'll need.
- Basically, to remove a single broken torsion spring you climb on your
stepladder, unbolt the two set bolts on the winding cone and remove the
two nuts on the spring end plate side. After marking the location of the
cable drums on the torsion rod, you loosen the set bolts on both cable
drums, and then you simply slide the broken torsion spring off the
torsion rod, leaving the torsion rod at the top of the door and only
removing the one cable drum on the side away from the spring anchor plate..
- Basically, to replace the torsion spring, you side the spring onto the
torsion rod, add a bearing if desired, line up the cable drum prior marks
and tighten the cable drums snug against the bearing end plates and
insert the cables holding them in place with a vice grip tensioning the
tension bar and then proceed to wind the spring. When wound the
prescribed 30 quarter turns (7 1/2 full turns for a 7 foot tall door),
you push out the spring about a quarter inch, and then tighten the
winding cone set bolts. Then you check and adjust and lubricate the
hinges, rollers, bearings, and GDO mechanism.
- If it's a two-spring system, the only additional initial step is to
unwind the unbroken spring before touching anything. Unwinding the old
spring is even easier than winding the new spring and is simply the
reverse operation of 30 quarter turns (7 1/2 full turns) for a 7 foot
tall door.

DANGER:
- I searched the news.google.com archives for gory stories of residential
homeowners being hurt or killed by winding garage door springs at home,
and, I just couldn't find much. This doesn't indicate much other than
it's not a big newsworthy topic I guess - but it's a datapoint.
- EVERY (and I mean every) site says it's dangerous - just as chain saws
and table saws and 220 volt motors and swimming pools are dangerous when
accidents happen - so I'll repeat what the sites say. It is dangerous.
- Winding torsion springs is dangerous because "something can go wrong",
and because "something can break".
- However, having said that, if you take normal precautions against both
of those possibilities, you too can (easily) wind a torsion spring.
- There are plenty of things NOT to do, by the way, when winding torsion
springs ... but the list of things to do are well spelled out at the DDM
Garage Door web site.
- Personally, at no point did I "feel" dire danger, especially after
having removed and reinstalled my torsion spring a half-dozen times. It
became 'almost' routine (therein lies the biggest danger, I suspect, to
garage door repairmen).
- The amount of force needed to wind a 0.250" 36" long torsion spring
with 18" steel bars is well within the strength of a normal man.

THEORY:
- The torsion spring acts like a counterweight to balance the
(appreciable) weight of the door.
- The GDO merely pushes the door open or closed - and in and of itself
does NOT open the door.
- The only lateral movement, assuming the cable drums are tightened
against the bearing end plates, as the door goes up and down is merely
the distance between the coils of the springs.
- Everything else should be locked down tightly (which was my problem).
- In general, the garage door repair company skimps on the springs, by
default, by giving you a 10,000 cycle spring.
- You can ask for longer cycle springs, which, if you keep to the same
inside diameter, are merely thicker gauge wire.
- The only thing that matters is the IPPT (inch pounds per turn) that you
need. Your garage door has a weight and a track & drum geometry that
determines the IPPT you need. Period.
- So, whatever new springs you put on must exert the same IPPT as the old
springs. Period.
- Most people want longer-lasting springs, so, all you need is either a
wider inside diameter spring with the same IPPT or a thicker gauge spring
with the same IPPT.
- In general, you likely won't opt for a wider ID so your choice is
merely a thicker gauge spring.
- Adding a second spring does NOT in any way improve your number of
cycles (only the spring geometry makes a difference in lifetime).
- Adding a second spring has some benefits - but they're relatively minor..
- Your limiting factor in improving lifetime will be how much room you
have as thicker-gauge springs with the same ID and IPPT will be longer
than the original.

DD-

Just because you've done one garage door (or seen one done) & read a
number of website sites does not make you expert enough to be writing
up descriptions for other novices to follow.

Your use of the subject terminology gives you away as someone merely
regurgitating / "parroting" (apologies to every parrot worldwide)
poorly understood information.

Your fix (metal "plate") was an amateurish hack.

Stop fixating on "ugly", learn to do appropriate investigative
demolition, drywall repair and how to take expert advice offered by
the a.h.r regulars.

How's your slope doin' ?
Goin' read some websites & post on slope stabilization next?

On Fri, 07 Dec 2012 17:10:37 -0800, DD_BobK wrote:

Just because you've done one garage door (or seen one done) & read a
number of website sites does not make you expert enough to be writing up
descriptions for other novices to follow.

I never said (nor implied) I was an expert so I'm sadly confused about
your response.

In fact, I clearly & overtly said in the very first line that I had never
done it before; and in the text I said these were lessons learned from
removing and reinstalling the torsion spring a half dozen times.

So, I'm sorry if you were confused (apparently) because I also said I
read every DIY and howto and watched every video that I could find on the
net.

I meant you no harm - and I sincerely hope nobody else (erroneously)
thought I was an expert as I never represented myself as such.

[I should note I confirmed all my work with Dan Musick whom I've spoken
with only a half dozen times, yet whom I 'would' consider an expert.]

I have no problems with your troubles and exploration of your door.
Those darn things can be daunting.
I have had to install them, many of them, and differing kinds.
Also repair many too, that were unsprung, or busted....
Good Luck,
no worries here.
john

"Danny D." wrote in message ...

On Fri, 07 Dec 2012 17:10:37 -0800, DD_BobK wrote:

Just because you've done one garage door (or seen one done) & read a
number of website sites does not make you expert enough to be writing up
descriptions for other novices to follow.

I never said (nor implied) I was an expert so I'm sadly confused about
your response.

In fact, I clearly & overtly said in the very first line that I had never
done it before; and in the text I said these were lessons learned from
removing and reinstalling the torsion spring a half dozen times.

So, I'm sorry if you were confused (apparently) because I also said I
read every DIY and howto and watched every video that I could find on the
net.

I meant you no harm - and I sincerely hope nobody else (erroneously)
thought I was an expert as I never represented myself as such.

[I should note I confirmed all my work with Dan Musick whom I've spoken
with only a half dozen times, yet whom I 'would' consider an expert.]

On Fri, 07 Dec 2012 18:31:02 -0800, jloomis wrote:

I have no problems with your troubles and exploration of your door.
Those darn things can be daunting.

Thanks for understanding.

I need help when I ask, and then, when I'm done, I've been on the net
long enough to know to give back to the group (hopefully in spades),
by paying it forward.

It was interesting though to read constantly about how dangerous it was,
yet to not find in the literature very many documented examples of how
exactly these people get hurt.

To be sure, I'm positive people get hurt every day (but most are likely
commercial accidents due to common mistakes the professionals make
when they're not careful doing something they do 10 times a day, every day).

For example, Dan Musick himself told me that he hurt his leg simply by
stepping off the ladder onto the old spring on the floor. I'm sure he
put old springs on the floor hundreds of times - but if you do that day
in and day out, one of those days you're gonna trip on that spring and
break your leg.

In addition, I'm sure that homeowners do some really really really dumb
things, e.g., Dan Musick says on his web site that one of his customers
unbolted the spring anchor plate without first untensioning the torsion
spring! That customer was lucky to get out of that one alive!

And not everyone survives their dumb mistakes.

For example, I read this 2004 OSHA Fatality Assessment of a NY maintenance
man who got killed in maintaining a commercial torsion spring.
http://health.ny.gov/environmental/i...cs/04ny135.pdf

However, if you read that report closely, you'll see MANY compound mistakes
piled up one upon another - with the result being his eventual death.

I even searched the bestgore web site expecting to find garage door
accidents galore - but alas - it was to no avail.

If you look at garage door accident statistics, there are 20K injuries
in American garages every year - but most of them appear to be to the
consumer and not to the repairman working on the garage door.
http://prlog.org/11649315-garage-doo...till-ugly.html
(Plus, the statistics are a PR stunt for a garage-door company.)

This garage door company mimics those dire statistics:
http://www.coveryourgaragedoortracks.com/statistics.htm

Another door company publishes vastly different "statistics":
http://nhdoors.com/2010/06/injury_statistics/
Here they say 10K people are hurt every year by having their fingers
pinched off in the door panels or having the whole door fall on them.

Perhaps more reliably, this scientific study of shows 85 children killed
or seriously injured since 1974 when garage door openers didn't reverse
on time (notice the numerical difference with the manufacturers' statistics):
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8885959

And, perhaps most apropos, this study shows the percentage of DIY accidents:
http://www.garagedoorchildsafety.com/injury_report.html
Where DIY accidents were 1610 out of 13,325.

Personally, I suspect all (or almost all) the DIY accidents were from
people doing dumb things like using screwdrivers to wind the springs,
or using flimsy ladders, or unbolting the anchor bracket without
detorsioning the spring, or failing to disconnect the GDO before working
on the door and then someone pressed the button - or - even this - forgetting
to gently move the black widow spider from the web-strewn upper door area!
http://www3.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11440621.jpg

YES! That's 'my' black widow spider. I found it while I was setting up a
safe and clean environment to work safely in on 'my' garage door repair!

On Dec 7, 5:52*pm, "Danny D." wrote:
On Fri, 07 Dec 2012 17:10:37 -0800, DD_BobK wrote:
Just because you've done one garage door (or seen one done) & read a
number of website sites does not make you expert enough to be writing up
descriptions for other novices to follow.

I never said (nor implied) I was an expert so I'm sadly confused about
your response.

In fact, I clearly & overtly said in the very first line that I had never
done it before; and in the text I said these were lessons learned from
removing and reinstalling the torsion spring a half dozen times.

So, I'm sorry if you were confused (apparently) because I also said I
read every DIY and howto and watched every video that I could find on the
net.

I meant you no harm - and I sincerely hope nobody else (erroneously)
thought I was an expert as I never represented myself as such.

[I should note I confirmed all my work with Dan Musick whom I've spoken
with only a half dozen times, yet whom I 'would' consider an expert.]

DADD-

I'm sorry but you're too inexperienced to even identify & recognize an
expert.

Watching videos, listening to "experts" & reading websites .... none
of this makes you an expert or able to identify an expert

The fact that you butchered an oak tree to satisfy your desire for "a
view" speaks volumes about your personality.
Your BS behavior since then confirms it. The fact that you're
"confused" is only more evidence.

Repeating information w/o understanding it makes you no better than a
parrot.

In article
,
DD_BobK wrote:

How's your slope doin' ?
Goin' read some websites & post on slope stabilization next?

Danny, aka Donna, is a troll, DD. Most famous for her water heater
replacement episode a few years back. I believe that thread was more
than 900 posts by the time it was over. She replies to every single
reply, thereby keeping threads going as long as possible, fixating on
excruciating minutia, seething with disingenuous politeness, posts gobs
of pictures, and continues to ask more and more and more questions until
the last damn dog is exhausted with her. Then she writes up a pedantic
"treatise" on the subject, with her grandiose "for the next person who
wants to know" attitude.

It's all a sham and a scam, disguised as a "useful" thread, but her sole
purpose is to accumulate thread length and sucker people into an endless
dialogue, because she's an attention whore. Notice how she split the
torsion spring thing into a half-dozen or so different threads, to
garner even more attention.

And, that's why she nym-shifts, in an attempt to evade detection. But
she's easy to spot within a few posts, if you know what to look for. She
engages every single respondent with flattery and attention, unlike some
trolls who take a hostile tack.

On Sat, 08 Dec 2012 06:39:08 -0800, Smitty Two wrote:

It's all a sham and a scam, disguised as a "useful" thread

Smitty,

I debated whether I should respond to you as your post was wholly
inaccurate and needless - and I decided - for better or for worse -
to only respond once, and only once, as the repair is finalized
and the final pay-it-forward summary has been submitted.

So heed my words.

I don't know whom you are talking about in some other thread but as for
the topic of the torsion spring repair, what you're actually objecting
to, surprisingly, is someone who asks on-topic questions, and who
responds to everyone politely, and who pays it forward.

In addition, you seem to be upset that the thread 'appears useful',
and that it covers 'minutia' such as pictures of the torsion spring
repair both before, during and after, and that the thread lasts
until the repair is finished - and then has a final update.

Apparently it hurts and upsets you most that a simple homeowner
garage door repair (which you've done yourself?) ended up being a
bit complicated, where it actually required a relocation of the
torsion spring anchor plate, addition of bearings, hinge replacement,
and, most importantly, a restructuring of the bearing supports themselves.

Apparently you like simple solutions - and - since this problem wasn't
a simple one - it appears to bother you immensely that it just wasn't
as easy as we'd all like it to have been.

Your thought processes perplexes me.

Maybe you don't like the fact that most posters ask the question only to
quickly disappear into the woodwork, with nary a picture nor any update,
nor any desire to pay it forward - and I didn't do that? Is that your
problem?

You clearly say I'm a troll, yet, let the actions speak for themselves.
Was there anything in the thread that wasn't a real issue?
Was there anything in the thread that wasn't backed up with details?
Did you even notice that I backed out when things got personal when
well-intentioned folks (e.g., Oren) and vitriolic ones (DD_BobK)
strongly suggested ripping out the wallboard?

And, did I split up separate topics as they should be?

Let my words and actions speak for themselves:
- The hinges did break and they did need to be replaced
- The torsion spring did break and it did need to be replaced
- The torsion spring was minus a bearing and it did need one added
- The spring end plate was improperly installed & it did need fixing
- The spring end plate did bend - and that was the hardest to rectify
- The cause of the bending was traced to the bearing end plate moving
- The cause of the end plate moving was traced to the lack of support
- The lack of support was solved with the use of metal plate
- This use of metal plate proved to be controversial (not my doing)
- The controversy revolved around the suggestion to remove the wallboard
- Every question was answered accurately & honestly & with photos
- Many of the photos were annotated specifically to answer the questions
- A final summary was given - and if people responded - I answered them.

But, there was more to your tirade, wasn't there?

You also seem to be upset that I strive for anonymity on the net, and,
you seem to equate me with someone you've met in the past, which I find
surprising since I've submitted probably ten to twenty thousand posts on
the net in the past two decades - some of which were with you and in
those you responded quite normally. (Offhand, I must thank Oren &
Trader4, & Ed Pawlowski, & DerbyDad03, & SMS, Jim Elbrecht, and
uncountable others for their thousands of helpful conversations.
Together, 'we' are the USENET, or what survives of it anyway, and
we, many of whom are over 60 years old, have been through it all.)

It surprises me that you pick, out of the thousands of my threads,
one that is particularly complicated - to then label me a 'troll'.

In summary, you are dead wrong, and sadly paranoid. Yet, I can not fix
you - so all I strive to be is a good person, and I pay it forward.
As they say, I will fight to the death for your right to say what you
think and feel. God Bless You - but - please - stay on topic.

On Sat, 8 Dec 2012 16:29:00 +0000 (UTC), "Danny D."
wrote:

Did you even notice that I backed out when things got personal when
well-intentioned folks (e.g., Oren) and vitriolic ones (DD_BobK)
strongly suggested ripping out the wallboard?

Suggesting you remove the wallboard was not "personal". You could have
saved a lot of time and aggravation by removing all the drywall or
just in the places you needed to place vertical mounting supports for
the spring bracket and the end drums. You said you found wood in some
places and later stated it was not there. It's hard to help you when
we don't know what was behind it. Sheetrock is relatively cheap and
easy to nail up there after repairs to the door. Just a few tools are
needed.

When that suggestion came up you went silent. It would have been easy
to plainly say; "I'm not going to do that". Without removing the
drywall, it complicated the matter in my opinion.

For the record, I've never replaced a spring or worked on a garage
door myself. I have seen plenty installed by professionals and watched
them intently. Following the threads here, I learned some things.

Perhaps you were being overly sensitive. If you are happy with your
final results then nothing else matters. As my friend often says: "it
looks good from my house." Personally, I would have not done it the
way you did, but that is water under the bridge.

On Sat, 08 Dec 2012 09:26:49 -0800, Oren wrote:
You could have saved a lot of time and aggravation
by removing all the drywall

I agree that I had two choices, namely:
a) Follow Dan's advice to shore up the end bearing flags externally, or,
b) Follow your advice to restructure the garage (i.e., add cripple studs).

For better or worse, I had opted to follow Dan Musick's advice to simply
shore up the bearing end plates with the steel angles he sent plus about
$15 in additional steel sheeting and Simpson "L" shaped support.

I'm sorry if that decision to follow DDM's approach caused controversy.

I had two perfectly viable options (but only needed to pick one):
a) Shore it up externally
b) Shore it up internally

Since they were mutually exclusive, I couldn't really do right by all.
Most of you say I did the wrong thing (and you may very well be right).
But, I told you why. I told you what. And I showed pictures of it all.

When I informed the group of that decision, I was shocked at the
seemingly unwarranted and totally OT vitriol from some, so I simply
let it drop as I had explained myself quite a few times already.

I did try to answer when the vitriol started flying (not from you),
for exampnle, about the plywood & my apparently erroneous use of the
descriptive term: "steel angle iron". But then wholly OT vitriol
resulted, and at that point I had realized it wasn't about the
plywood or steel sheets. It was about something else, and, it wasn't
even about me. It was a problem that they seem to have had with some
woman they've met in the past.

Come to think of it, I guess, that just might explain the vitriol!

You said you found wood in some places and later stated it was not there.
It's hard to help you when we don't know what was behind it.

This is very true. You'll even notice that I've marked the wall where I
thought wood was, only to find that it was insubstantial.

You'll also notice that I moved the spring end plate to the left (as
you and I had agreed) 18 inches only to find that what I thought was
solid wood was only a thin piece of wood on a solid steel beam!

You'll then notice that I moved the spring end plate the 12 inches to
the right (as we had discussed), only to find that the 'wood' there
was again, insubstantial (the lag bolts went right through it).

I might not have mentioned it, but even the lower 3-inch lag bolts for
the tracks barely went into substantial wood.

Only after all that did I realize what the original garage installers
knew all along. There was no substantial wood anywhere above that
garage door, and along its sides. Only after all that (and dozens of
nail holes) did I realize that the garage is solely supported by the
concrete block and then steel beams.

Of course, had I ripped out all the sheetrock, I could have come to
the same conclusion (perhaps in less time). But, you must remember,
the goal was to (properly) replace the broken torsion spring.

As Dan Musick said, it was a difficult repair for anyone.

When that suggestion came up you went silent. It would have been easy
to plainly say; "I'm not going to do that". Without removing the
drywall, it complicated the matter in my opinion.

I'm sorry about that. I thought I had made it clear I was following
the advice of Dan Musick to shore up the bearing end plate flags.

IIRC, at the same time as your helpful suggestion, DD_BobK kept throwing
in OT vitriol that had absolutely nothing to do with this repair - and -
since I had already stated I had no plans to remove the sheetrock, there
was nothing more to say (other than to respond politely to DD_BobK and
then being shocked by more totally OT vitriol being heaped back).

I just backed off as I had no desire to argue. I apologize.

Following the threads here, I learned some things.

Thank you for saying that. I learned a lot too.

First, and foremost:
I learned that the dangerous springs are easy to remove & install.
I also learned that buying springs nowadays is trivially easy.
I also learned that up-sizing & doubling springs is trivially easy,
with the calculators on Dan Musick's web site.
Yet, I learned the actual math is imposing (as per Richard Kinch).
I learned that Dan Musick is the guy to go to for the springs and for
the winding bars and ancillary parts (hinges, rollers, plates, etc.).

It was especially interesting to learn that the tracks pitch backward
while the hinges graduate forward, such that the door is straight in
the final position. Also it was nice to check the overhead tracks to
see that they were absolutely level (to a tenth of a degree on my
digital level).

It was super surprising how easily the tracks went back up (admittedly,
I was just putting them back into the same holes) - but I was surprised
how easy it was to level them given how much I had feared taking them
apart in the first place.

It was great to learn what to lubricate and what not to lube.
(My mistake was to lube the tracks, which I rectified later on.)

Even putting the cables onto the drums, for the first time, was a learning
experience, as I had prior worried that it might be difficult to string
them both at the same time. But Dan Musick's suggested vise grip worked
wonders for tensioning the torsion rod.

It was interesting to note that I was easily able to adjust the
tension by backing off on the number of quarter turns (my door needs
only 29 quarter turns, whereas a typical 7' tall door needs 30).

And, it was rewarding to adjust the initial tilt of the garage door
by slipping the cable drum.

It was a learning experience when I tried to lift the door without the
spring and then subsequently erroneously arrived at the wrong weight
(because I used a digital scale).

In summary, having never understood garage door geometry and operation,
and, having feared torsion spring replacements in the past, I'm very
glad I did upgrade and replace my broken torsion spring. It's unfortunate
that the bearing end plate flags where unsupported - and that the
spring anchor plate was unsupported - and that there was no bearing.

Had those three issues not arisen, this would have been a very simple
and straightforward torsion spring repair.

If you are happy with your final results then nothing else matters.

Thank you.

It made me feel good that Dan Musick said that the repair will outlast
me, when I mailed him the same pictures that I had provided on a.h.r.

Since I could have left the spring anchor plate without a bearing and
bending as it was, it makes me feel especially good that the spring
anchor plate and torsion rod are now well supported - and that the
bearing end plate flags no longer allow the drums substantial movement.

I have learned; others have learned - and we leave that to posterity.

On Sat, 08 Dec 2012 09:26:49 -0800, Oren wrote:

I have seen plenty installed by professionals and watched
them intently. Following the threads here, I learned some things.

I forgot to mention that I also learned that the torsion bar is
NOT supposed to move sideways when the door opens and closes
(allowing for the tiny bit of unavoidable slop at each side's
cable-drum-to-end-bearing interface).

What Dan Musick told me by phone was the only sideways 'movement'
is in the spacing between the coils. This wasn't intuitive to me
because I personally twisted that spring 7 times and watched it
grow almost two inches in the process (i.e., 7 quarter-inch coils).

I kept wondering where that two inches went when the spring
untwisted on the way down! It turns out that two inches is hidden
between the coils!

It's intuitive once you know it - but not until you do it!

On Sat, 08 Dec 2012 09:26:49 -0800, Oren wrote:

Following the threads here, I learned some things.

Since this is a lessons-learned thread, another not-so-obvious result
is to understand the differences when a torsion spring breaks nearer
to one end than to the other in a single torsion spring system.

Until I read Dan Musick's web site, I hadn't realized that the part
that spins violently is the winding cone end because that's the end
bolted to the torsion rod itself.

The other end just spins inside its bearing.

So, the implication is different if the spring breaks nearer to one
end than to the other. If the single torsion spring breaks nearer to
the winding cone, the violent spin on the torsion rod is apparently
much LESS than if that same spring breaks nearer to the stationary cone.

This, of course, has implications if the door was moving upward at the
same time. This particular detail, to my knowledge, has never been
discussed on a.h.r, and therefore I add it as an additional lesson
learned.

On Dec 8, 6:39*am, Smitty Two wrote:
In article
,

*DD_BobK wrote:
How's your slope doin' ?
Goin' read some websites & post on slope stabilization next?

Danny, aka Donna, is a troll, DD. Most famous for her water heater
replacement episode a few years back. I believe that thread was more
than 900 posts by the time it was over. She replies to every single
reply, thereby keeping threads going as long as possible, fixating on
excruciating minutia, seething with disingenuous politeness, posts gobs
of pictures, and continues to ask more and more and more questions until
the last damn dog is exhausted with her. Then she writes up a pedantic
"treatise" on the subject, with her grandiose "for the next person who
wants to know" attitude.

It's all a sham and a scam, disguised as a "useful" thread, but her sole
purpose is to accumulate thread length and sucker people into an endless
dialogue, because she's an attention whore. Notice how she split the
torsion spring thing into a half-dozen or so different threads, to
garner even more attention.

And, that's why she nym-shifts, in an attempt to evade detection. But
she's easy to spot within a few posts, if you know what to look for. She
engages every single respondent with flattery and attention, unlike some
trolls who take a hostile tack.

Smitty Two-

I have to disagree with your assessment that DADD is a troll.

Yeah, he seems like a troll but I believe his stupidity is just
simulating troll behavior.
imo, unfortunately he's real, just real dumb that's all.

cheers
Bob

On Friday, December 7, 2012 7:10:37 PM UTC-6, DD_BobK wrote:
On Dec 7, 1:31*pm, "Danny D." wrote:

For most of you on a.h.r, these lessons will be old hat; but for those of

you (like I was) who have never relocated a torsion spring, these lessons

may come in handy in the future.



WHAT DO MOST GARAGE DOOR COMPANIES DO:

- Most charge around $150 to $200 and will do a great job.

- Most promise same day and next-day service.

- I could do the entire job in an hour - so I'm sure they can too.

- Most will simply replace the old spring with the same size new spring..

- Some will 'upgrade' the spring to a longer-life spring (others won't)..

- Some may charge for that longer-life upgrade; others won't.

- Most will adjust and lubricate the door and GDO as a bonus to you.

- Some may try to sell you useless extras, such as galvanized springs or

warranties (the 800 numbers I called were the worst offenders).



MAINTENANCE:

- Snap a picture today of your torsion spring setup (I wish I had this)..

- Lubricate the garage door rollers, hinges, GDO mechanism, and torsion

bar bearings (two to three of those bearings may be installed).

- Check that the door is parallel when raised and vertical when lowered..

- Operate the door by hand to check spring balance at multiple positions.

- Close the door and check for tilt by looking for light at the bottom.



RESEARCH:

- I've watched EVERY torsion spring DIY on YouTube and none beat DDM

Garage Doors - so all you need is the ddmgaragedoors.com web site.

- The Richard Kinch truetex web site is the second site you'll need.

- No other web sites are needed although I've read EVERY alt.home.repair

thread that mentions garage doors that I can find in the groups.google.com

archive and while there is 'some' really good information on a.h.r - most

of the threads also contain contradictory garbage, and therefore you must

take every thread with a grain of salt.



REPLACEMENT:

- Replacing a torsion spring is easy and requires basic tools.

- The only special tool are two 18" long 1/2" diameter winding bars.

- A few open end wrenches and a large vise grip is all else you'll need..

- Basically, to remove a single broken torsion spring you climb on your

stepladder, unbolt the two set bolts on the winding cone and remove the

two nuts on the spring end plate side. After marking the location of the

cable drums on the torsion rod, you loosen the set bolts on both cable

drums, and then you simply slide the broken torsion spring off the

torsion rod, leaving the torsion rod at the top of the door and only

removing the one cable drum on the side away from the spring anchor plate.

- Basically, to replace the torsion spring, you side the spring onto the

torsion rod, add a bearing if desired, line up the cable drum prior marks

and tighten the cable drums snug against the bearing end plates and

insert the cables holding them in place with a vice grip tensioning the

tension bar and then proceed to wind the spring. When wound the

prescribed 30 quarter turns (7 1/2 full turns for a 7 foot tall door),

you push out the spring about a quarter inch, and then tighten the

winding cone set bolts. Then you check and adjust and lubricate the

hinges, rollers, bearings, and GDO mechanism.

- If it's a two-spring system, the only additional initial step is to

unwind the unbroken spring before touching anything. Unwinding the old

spring is even easier than winding the new spring and is simply the

reverse operation of 30 quarter turns (7 1/2 full turns) for a 7 foot

tall door.



DANGER:

- I searched the news.google.com archives for gory stories of residential

homeowners being hurt or killed by winding garage door springs at home,

and, I just couldn't find much. This doesn't indicate much other than

it's not a big newsworthy topic I guess - but it's a datapoint.

- EVERY (and I mean every) site says it's dangerous - just as chain saws

and table saws and 220 volt motors and swimming pools are dangerous when

accidents happen - so I'll repeat what the sites say. It is dangerous.

- Winding torsion springs is dangerous because "something can go wrong",

and because "something can break".

- However, having said that, if you take normal precautions against both

of those possibilities, you too can (easily) wind a torsion spring.

- There are plenty of things NOT to do, by the way, when winding torsion

springs ... but the list of things to do are well spelled out at the DDM

Garage Door web site.

- Personally, at no point did I "feel" dire danger, especially after

having removed and reinstalled my torsion spring a half-dozen times. It

became 'almost' routine (therein lies the biggest danger, I suspect, to

garage door repairmen).

- The amount of force needed to wind a 0.250" 36" long torsion spring

with 18" steel bars is well within the strength of a normal man.



THEORY:

- The torsion spring acts like a counterweight to balance the

(appreciable) weight of the door.

- The GDO merely pushes the door open or closed - and in and of itself

does NOT open the door.

- The only lateral movement, assuming the cable drums are tightened

against the bearing end plates, as the door goes up and down is merely

the distance between the coils of the springs.

- Everything else should be locked down tightly (which was my problem).

- In general, the garage door repair company skimps on the springs, by

default, by giving you a 10,000 cycle spring.

- You can ask for longer cycle springs, which, if you keep to the same

inside diameter, are merely thicker gauge wire.

- The only thing that matters is the IPPT (inch pounds per turn) that you

need. Your garage door has a weight and a track & drum geometry that

determines the IPPT you need. Period.

- So, whatever new springs you put on must exert the same IPPT as the old

springs. Period.

- Most people want longer-lasting springs, so, all you need is either a

wider inside diameter spring with the same IPPT or a thicker gauge spring

with the same IPPT.

- In general, you likely won't opt for a wider ID so your choice is

merely a thicker gauge spring.

- Adding a second spring does NOT in any way improve your number of

cycles (only the spring geometry makes a difference in lifetime).

- Adding a second spring has some benefits - but they're relatively minor.

- Your limiting factor in improving lifetime will be how much room you

have as thicker-gauge springs with the same ID and IPPT will be longer

than the original.



DD-



Just because you've done one garage door (or seen one done) & read a

number of website sites does not make you expert enough to be writing

up descriptions for other novices to follow.



Your use of the subject terminology gives you away as someone merely

regurgitating / "parroting" (apologies to every parrot worldwide)

poorly understood information.



Your fix (metal "plate") was an amateurish hack.



Stop fixating on "ugly", learn to do appropriate investigative

demolition, drywall repair and how to take expert advice offered by

the a.h.r regulars.



How's your slope doin' ?

Goin' read some websites & post on slope stabilization next?

I am sorry but those call experts put the wrong springs in my garage! So speak for your self and not everybody else. Also What makes you an expert then someone with common sense and a little "can do" attitude can't do? I am not an expert and yes, I replace those springs who where replace by those call experts!

DD_BobK You suck balls!

On Tue, 19 Apr 2016 19:30:29 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

DD_BobK You suck balls!

Is that an invitation? Admit it, I bet you like guys sucking your balls, don't you?

On Fri, 7 Dec 2012 21:31:11 +0000 (UTC), "Danny D."
wrote:

For most of you on a.h.r, these lessons will be old hat; but for those of
you (like I was) who have never relocated a torsion spring, these lessons
may come in handy in the future.


Thanks, Danny. Only thing I disagree with is one spring vs two.
Too many advantages make 2-spring well worth the extra little cost.
Couldn't find ANY advantage of single spring except that little cost.
Pure bean counter mentality is all I can guess.

On Sat, 08 Dec 2012 01:38:45 -0600, Vic Smith wrote:

Only thing I disagree with is one spring vs two.
Too many advantages make 2-spring well worth the extra little cost.

I corrected that assessment in a subsequent detailed response to
rightfully recyclebinned who also disagreed as you did.

The advantages of two torsion springs are (summarized):
1. When one spring breaks, the door goes down softer.
2. When one spring breaks, the door goes up softer too!
3. Balanced spring forces are gentler on the cable drum flags.
4. With each spring doing half the work, you have greater spring choices.
5. Winding two springs is only half the work per spring.

The disadvantages weren't listed, but some of them a
1. Two springs generally costs (slightly) more than one spring.
2. Two springs are generally (slightly) longer overall than one spring.
3. Two springs are generally (slightly) heavier than one spring.
4. Two springs are (slightly) more effort to install than one spring.
5. Converting from one spring to two spring has to be done correctly.

Let me know if I missed any pros and cons.

On Sat, 8 Dec 2012 07:49:37 +0000 (UTC), "Danny D."
wrote:

On Sat, 08 Dec 2012 01:38:45 -0600, Vic Smith wrote:

Only thing I disagree with is one spring vs two.
Too many advantages make 2-spring well worth the extra little cost.

I corrected that assessment in a subsequent detailed response to
rightfully recyclebinned who also disagreed as you did.

The advantages of two torsion springs are (summarized):
1. When one spring breaks, the door goes down softer.
2. When one spring breaks, the door goes up softer too!

Probably better to say when a one spring door spring breaks, the door
comes down with full weight of the door, or if already down, it takes
major muscle power to get the door open.
The danger and effort is cut in half with a 2 spring.

3. Balanced spring forces are gentler on the cable drum flags.

Almost every piece of fastening hardware undergoes more strain with a
single spring - because of torsion shaft lateral movement.
Remember your spring anchor bracket flex.
I think the only force that would be equal with either setup would be
the rotational force pushing against the top of the spring anchor
bracket and attempting to pull the lag screws in the bottom of the
bracket from the header.
I have to look at mine and see if they used 2 spring anchor brackets
or 1. And whether the bolts connect the stationary cones together.
Walked the dogs.
It's one bracket, and the bolts go through both cones.
Two brackets back to back would be stronger, but maybe overkill.
And you'd need left and right bracket designs since there's 2 holes
for 2 lag screws on the bottom and one slot for a screw on top.
BTW, I think I said - and know I was thinking - that with a 2-spring
setup the springs counteract each other. That's wrong, except for in
the case of shaft lateral movement.
They apply or release torsion to the torsion shaft in whatever
direction the shaft rotates. Has to be that way (-:
Still don't understand how the springs can lengthen/shorten on a
2-spring when all 4 ends are locked down and the shaft can't move
laterally. I can live with that.

4. With each spring doing half the work, you have greater spring choices.
5. Winding two springs is only half the work per spring.

The disadvantages weren't listed, but some of them a
1. Two springs generally costs (slightly) more than one spring.
2. Two springs are generally (slightly) longer overall than one spring.
3. Two springs are generally (slightly) heavier than one spring.

I don't see 2 and 3 as "disadvantages." Springs and hardware are
contained within the length of the torsion shaft and nothing else
should be around that anyway. Weight doesn't matter unless you drive
your garage.

4. Two springs are (slightly) more effort to install than one spring.
5. Converting from one spring to two spring has to be done correctly.

Let me know if I missed any pros and cons.

Danny D:

Personally, I would disagree with the advice to remove the pulley at one end of the torsion rod and slide the spring off that end. It's been years since I did my sister's garage door, but:

A) it seems to me that there must be something supporting the ends of the torsion rods where the pulleys are, and that "thing" may prevent the removal of the spring.

B) In my sister's case, she only had about a foot of space between the end of her torsion rod and the side wall of her garage. So, there really wasn't enough space to slide the new spring onto the rod easily.

C) My sister has a double garage, and her GDO uses two torsion springs. If I recall correctly, I was told that if one torsion spring breaks, it's best to replace both because the other won't be too far behind. And, if a person is going to be replacing both springs, it's not much extra work to hire a couple of teenagers to lift the whole assembly off the garage wall, replace both springs when the assembly is on the ground, and then put the whole assembly back up again.

It's been years since I did my sister's GDO, so I may be wrong on some points I'm making here.

Every web site you read about working with torsion spring GDO's will tell you it's dangerous, and that's mostly because of the possiblity of the winding bar slipping out of your grip and swinging around to smack you in the face or head. But, if someone has never done this kind of work, they don't know how much force will be in that winding bar, and therefore how dangerous what they're attempting to do is. And, that lack of certainty is fertile ground for the imagination to run wild with all kinds of tragic scenarios. When Y2K was upon is, because no one was certain there wouldn't be a problem, people were hunkered down in their own make shift bomb shelters with a month's supply of food and fresh water. Lack of certainty makes EVERY possible outcome a possibility.

Danny D:

Personally, I would disagree with the advice to remove the pulley at one end of the torsion rod and slide the old spring off and the new spring on at that end. It's been years since I did my sister's garage door, but:

A) it seems to me that there must be something supporting the ends of the torsion rods where the pulleys are, and that support may prevent the removal of the spring. I just don't remember what supported the ends of the torsion rod in my sister's garage, but I expect it was a factor in my deciding to remove the entire assembly.

B) In my sister's case, she only had about a foot of space between the end of her torsion rod and the side wall of her garage, and that was true for both ends of the GDO assembly. So, there really wasn't enough space to slide the new spring onto the rod easily. I do recall that being one of the reasons I decided to remove the whole assembly.

C) My sister has a double garage, and her GDO uses two torsion springs. If I recall correctly, I was told that if one torsion spring breaks, it's best to replace both because the other won't be too far behind. And, if a person is going to be replacing both springs, it's not much extra work to hire a couple of teenagers off the street for $5 each to lift the whole assembly off the garage wall and placing it back in place so it can be attached. Once the assembly is down and supported on saw horses, or whatever, it's easy to work on.

It's been years since I did my sister's GDO, so I may be wrong on some points I'm making here.

Every web site that deals with replacing broken GDO torsion springs will tell you it's dangerous, and that's mostly because of the possiblity of the winding bar slipping out of your grip and swinging around to smack you in the face or head. But, if someone has never done this kind of work, they don't know how much force will be in that winding bar, and therefore how dangerous what they're attempting to do is. And, that uncertainty is fertile ground for the imagination to run wild with the most extreme scenarios. When Y2K was upon us a little better than a dozen years ago, people were hunkered down in their own make shift bomb shelters with their family, a month's supply of food and a shot gun! Uncertainty makes EVERY scenario a possibility that one needs to be prepared for.

On Sat, 08 Dec 2012 05:10:09 -0600, Vic Smith wrote:
2. When one spring breaks, the door goes up softer too!
The danger and effort is cut in half with a 2 spring.

I totally agree that your two points above are 100% correct.

When 1-of-2 torsion springs break:
1. The door going down is (much) safer!
2. Lifting the door up is (much) easier!

But, there's another not-so-obvious advantage of having two springs
on a double-car door when spring breaks while the door is moving up.
3. When one spring breaks, the door goes up softer too!

It's difficult to explain, so allow me simply quote Dan Musick himself:
How to Convert from One Garage Door Spring to Two
http://ddmgaragedoors.com/diy-instru...conversion.php

[ verbatim ]
Other problems frequently ensue when a single spring is used on a double-car
garage door. Many manufacturers have cut costs by using a single spring on a
double-wide 16' steel garage door. If the spring breaks near the stationary
cone, a large portion of the spring spins loose with the winding cone secured
to the shaft. This causes a strong force to pull on the cables, often leading
to one or two broken cables. If the opener up force is set too strong, it is
more likely to wreck the top section if not the whole door. A second spring
helps to keep the tension when the first spring breaks, resulting in fewer
broken cables and less damage to the garage door itself.
[ / verbatim ]

The only 'special' tools needed are two 18" long 1/2 inch diameter steel
winding bars (for most residential springs) - but - I did see this fancy
torsion spring winding tool which, I guess, if you installed springs all
day every day, could make your life a little bit easier & more efficient:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgXDhpdC0q4

Danny D. wrote:

For most of you on a.h.r, these lessons will be old hat; but for those of
you (like I was) who have never relocated a torsion spring, these lessons
may come in handy in the future.

WHAT DO MOST GARAGE DOOR COMPANIES DO:
- Most charge around $150 to $200 and will do a great job.
- Most promise same day and next-day service.
- I could do the entire job in an hour - so I'm sure they can too.
- Most will simply replace the old spring with the same size new spring.
- Some will 'upgrade' the spring to a longer-life spring (others won't).
- Some may charge for that longer-life upgrade; others won't.
- Most will adjust and lubricate the door and GDO as a bonus to you.
- Some may try to sell you useless extras, such as galvanized springs or
warranties (the 800 numbers I called were the worst offenders).

MAINTENANCE:
- Snap a picture today of your torsion spring setup (I wish I had this).
- Lubricate the garage door rollers, hinges, GDO mechanism, and torsion
bar bearings (two to three of those bearings may be installed).
- Check that the door is parallel when raised and vertical when lowered.
- Operate the door by hand to check spring balance at multiple positions.
- Close the door and check for tilt by looking for light at the bottom.

RESEARCH:
- I've watched EVERY torsion spring DIY on YouTube and none beat DDM
Garage Doors - so all you need is the ddmgaragedoors.com web site.
- The Richard Kinch truetex web site is the second site you'll need.
- No other web sites are needed although I've read EVERY alt.home.repair
thread that mentions garage doors that I can find in the groups.google.com
archive and while there is 'some' really good information on a.h.r - most
of the threads also contain contradictory garbage, and therefore you must
take every thread with a grain of salt.

REPLACEMENT:
- Replacing a torsion spring is easy and requires basic tools.
- The only special tool are two 18" long 1/2" diameter winding bars.
- A few open end wrenches and a large vise grip is all else you'll need.
- Basically, to remove a single broken torsion spring you climb on your
stepladder, unbolt the two set bolts on the winding cone and remove the
two nuts on the spring end plate side. After marking the location of the
cable drums on the torsion rod, you loosen the set bolts on both cable
drums, and then you simply slide the broken torsion spring off the
torsion rod, leaving the torsion rod at the top of the door and only
removing the one cable drum on the side away from the spring anchor plate.
- Basically, to replace the torsion spring, you side the spring onto the
torsion rod, add a bearing if desired, line up the cable drum prior marks
and tighten the cable drums snug against the bearing end plates and
insert the cables holding them in place with a vice grip tensioning the
tension bar and then proceed to wind the spring. When wound the
prescribed 30 quarter turns (7 1/2 full turns for a 7 foot tall door),
you push out the spring about a quarter inch, and then tighten the
winding cone set bolts. Then you check and adjust and lubricate the
hinges, rollers, bearings, and GDO mechanism.
- If it's a two-spring system, the only additional initial step is to
unwind the unbroken spring before touching anything. Unwinding the old
spring is even easier than winding the new spring and is simply the
reverse operation of 30 quarter turns (7 1/2 full turns) for a 7 foot
tall door.

DANGER:
- I searched the news.google.com archives for gory stories of residential
homeowners being hurt or killed by winding garage door springs at home,
and, I just couldn't find much. This doesn't indicate much other than
it's not a big newsworthy topic I guess - but it's a datapoint.
- EVERY (and I mean every) site says it's dangerous - just as chain saws
and table saws and 220 volt motors and swimming pools are dangerous when
accidents happen - so I'll repeat what the sites say. It is dangerous.
- Winding torsion springs is dangerous because "something can go wrong",
and because "something can break".
- However, having said that, if you take normal precautions against both
of those possibilities, you too can (easily) wind a torsion spring.
- There are plenty of things NOT to do, by the way, when winding torsion
springs ... but the list of things to do are well spelled out at the DDM
Garage Door web site.
- Personally, at no point did I "feel" dire danger, especially after
having removed and reinstalled my torsion spring a half-dozen times. It
became 'almost' routine (therein lies the biggest danger, I suspect, to
garage door repairmen).
- The amount of force needed to wind a 0.250" 36" long torsion spring
with 18" steel bars is well within the strength of a normal man.

THEORY:
- The torsion spring acts like a counterweight to balance the
(appreciable) weight of the door.
- The GDO merely pushes the door open or closed - and in and of itself
does NOT open the door.
- The only lateral movement, assuming the cable drums are tightened
against the bearing end plates, as the door goes up and down is merely
the distance between the coils of the springs.
- Everything else should be locked down tightly (which was my problem).
- In general, the garage door repair company skimps on the springs, by
default, by giving you a 10,000 cycle spring.
- You can ask for longer cycle springs, which, if you keep to the same
inside diameter, are merely thicker gauge wire.
- The only thing that matters is the IPPT (inch pounds per turn) that you
need. Your garage door has a weight and a track & drum geometry that
determines the IPPT you need. Period.
- So, whatever new springs you put on must exert the same IPPT as the old
springs. Period.
- Most people want longer-lasting springs, so, all you need is either a
wider inside diameter spring with the same IPPT or a thicker gauge spring
with the same IPPT.
- In general, you likely won't opt for a wider ID so your choice is
merely a thicker gauge spring.
- Adding a second spring does NOT in any way improve your number of
cycles (only the spring geometry makes a difference in lifetime).
- Adding a second spring has some benefits - but they're relatively minor.
- Your limiting factor in improving lifetime will be how much room you
have as thicker-gauge springs with the same ID and IPPT will be longer
than the original.


Well Danny D. I've been following your door saga since day one. I must
say you are the first person here to actually go out of their way to
learn every aspect of the door and spring operation! When you first
started posting and running into trouble I thought, "oh man, he's in a
world of hurt now". You are a trooper though. You kept asking
questions, you found the proper resources, and you never gave up!

I'm proud of you. At first I didn't know if you were going to make it
and have to call out a pro to fix your errors. You kept digging for
more and more information and now you've basically become a pro
yourself. Now that you know the geometry and what each moving part
does, installing a new door from scratch won't be a problem for you. You
already know the "hard part", that is bewildering to most DIY'ers.

Congratulations, I'm sure you feel a great sense of accomplishment - as
you should!

On Sat, 15 Dec 2012 09:05:55 -0600, G. Morgan wrote:

you are the first person here to actually go out of their way to
learn every aspect of the door and spring operation!

Thanks for noticing. You were the first to respond to my query, and
you were the one who noticed that I had placed the rollers in the wrong
slots for my other door. You also advised me when that second door was
sticking in the tracks (ironically, that was resolved by moving the
rollers!).

I took (almost) all your advice, e.g., to make sure the winding bars
were seated well. And you explained why nobody works on the garage door
when it's open, and your humorous color-code mnemonic was a good one,
and you helped me understand those fancy spring-winding tools weren't
needed.

I tried your relag suggestion; but it failed due to the lack of
substantial
wood below the anchor plate (which you and I were both unaware of).

You even were the first one (IIRC) that pointed me to the DDM Doors web
site - which - after having read every single page - I would say is
clearly
the best on the net!

About the only suggestion I didn't take of yours was when you explained
how you manage to unwind your torsion springs all at once! (Whew!)

I try to be responsive and to post pictures, and
to pay it forward. While not everyone appreciated the effort, many have
helped me on this endeavor and for that help I am indeed very grateful.

You and they make the USENET a fantastic resource for all of us.

BTW, even though Dan Musick's videos are all anyone would need,
this 2-part real-time series from a young homeowner is pretty good:
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dio-hYjXNzg
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR4VA...ture=fvwp&NR=1

Another decent video that hasn't yet been mentioned is this one
which shows in a humorous way how to lubricate your garage door:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1lUm7koF2A

One of the best benefits of homeowner DIY is that you know the
right spring combination was put on the door. This short video
from the same company above shows how to do a balance test, and
it even shows what happens to the opener gear when a repairman
puts the wrong spring on (because that's what he had on the truck).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=xI3yfyb6tc0&list=UUpNHXeWQMBHIIA6uqJ8bOlA&index= 3

BTW, about the only GD company that says it's safe to do is this one:
(They equate the task with changing a tire & they sell you the guides.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O92zPJxfdxY

But there is always more to learn.

For example, an enigma I haven't found the answer to on the net yet
is why the OLD broken spring still shows latent winding spirals ...
as if it's still wound up?
http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11697515.jpg

That paint on the old broken spring used to be a straight line; so
why does the old spring still show 7 spirals as if it's still wound?

Also notice the winding spirals are in the opposite direction from
the original.
Why would that be?

Danny D. wrote:

About the only suggestion I didn't take of yours was when you explained
how you manage to unwind your torsion springs all at once! (Whew!)

Lol.. Yeah, those are only for springs that will never be used again.

Danny D. wrote:

For example, an enigma I haven't found the answer to on the net yet
is why the OLD broken spring still shows latent winding spirals ...
as if it's still wound up?
http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11697515.jpg

That paint on the old broken spring used to be a straight line; so
why does the old spring still show 7 spirals as if it's still wound?

Also notice the winding spirals are in the opposite direction from
the original.
Why would that be?


Because when the spring is compressed, it's not exposed to the elements.
When you wind the spring it shortens in length by a few inches, then you
tighten it. When unwound, that extra length is visible.

On Wed, 19 Dec 2012 07:20:38 -0600, G. Morgan wrote:

That paint on the old broken spring used to be a straight line; so why
does the old spring still show 7 spirals as if it's still wound?

Also notice the winding spirals are in the opposite direction from the
original. Why would that be?

Because when the spring is compressed, it's not exposed to the elements.
When you wind the spring it shortens in length by a few inches, then you
tighten it. When unwound, that extra length is visible.

I don't understand.
http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11697515.jpg

I guess you're saying that the old spring was exposed to the elements
while it was in the wound state - and yet - the backside of the spring
isn't exposed to the elements so the backside is noticeably less rusted.

So, I guess, the backside gets a straight line of less rust while the
spring is still wound seven times - and when that spring breaks, that
straight line turns into an opposite spiral of less-rusted spring steel
as the now-broken spring instantly spins back the 7 times to unwind?

On Fri, 21 Dec 2012 08:52:44 +0000, Danny D. wrote:

I don't understand.
http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11697515.jpg

I guess you're saying that the old spring was exposed to the elements
while it was in the wound state - and yet - the backside of the spring
isn't exposed to the elements so the backside is noticeably less rusted.

I wrote to Richard Kinch and to Dan Musick at DDM Garage doors, to
ask them about this weathered line in my broken torsion spring:
http://www2.picturepush.com/photo/a/...g/11697515.jpg

Both engineers kindly responded with great information that explains
this anomaly and, interestingly, which provides a useful homeowner
'trick' to know when your springs might be slipping over time!

First, Dan at DDM Garage Doors explained that many springs have this
reverse wound spiral because dust collects at the TOP of the spring.

As G. Morgan astutely surmised, this linear collection of dust on a
wound spring, over time, causes differential weathering, which shows
up as a straight line on a wound spring.

When that wound spring breaks, the weathering shows up as a reverse spiral
on the unwound spring.

Interestingly, Richard Kinch provided ways to make use of this featu
1. We can PAINT a line on a wound spring to judge slippage over time
2. We can LOOK at an unwound spring and count the number of turns
3. We can LOOK at an unwound spring and determine the chirality

Of course, there are OTHER ways to note slippage, turns, and chirality,
but this feature can be used as a doublecheck!

Indeed, there are still lessons to be learned even AFTER installing
a typical garage door torsion spring!

Hey DD, Thanks for the great info.

I tried to wind my new spring today, and have a big problem. I can not get 90 degrees turn with 18" winding bars due to the structure of the door and the ceiling. I can wind it with 7" bars, but I can only get 13 quarter-turns before it's too difficult to turn. I'm thinking of using 18" bars with a bend in them, or knocking a hole in the garage ceiling. Any other ideas?
Thanks again

This is a beer faucet wrench:

http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/m...5/k/0/k080.jpg

Note that the short pin in the curved end of the wrench engages a hole in the beer faucet collar in a way similar to the way rebars engage the holes in the torsion spring knuckle.

Would taking an old torsion spring knuckle down to any ornamental iron shop and having them make two X-tra large beer faucet wrenches for you out of 1/2 inch rebar work?

I'm thinking you can turn the torsion spring knuckle with the straight end of one X-tra large beer faucet wrench however far it takes to get a good grip on the next hole with the curved end of the other X-tra large beer faucet wrench.

It's not absolutely necessary to have the exact number of turns of preload on the torsion springs. All that's necessary is that the preload is not so much that the preload won't allow the door to descend all the way down under it's own weight, or not so little that the weight of the door makes it hard for you to open it by yourself. Anything in between will work fine.

So, if your door isn't going all the way down by itself, unwind the spring a quarter or half turn. If you find the door hard to raise, put another quarter or half turn into the spring.

Just remember this: Keep your head and face out of the plane that the winding bars would swing in if they slipped out of the torsion spring winding knuckle or you lost your grip on them.

onthegroove wrote:

I can not get 90 degrees turn with 18" winding bars due to the structure
of the door and the ceiling.

Let's look here to see if Dan Musick has ideas already in his videos:
http://ddmgaragedoors.com/diy-instru...on-springs.php

I'm viewing those videos now ...

Danny D. wrote:

I can not get 90 degrees turn with 18" winding bars due to the
structure of the door and the ceiling.

Let's look here to see if Dan Musick has ideas already in his videos:
http://ddmgaragedoors.com/diy-instru...-door-torsion-
springs.php

I'm viewing those videos now ...

He didn't cover it - and - well - I'm having a hard time visualizing how
18" couldn't be available, nor, how a 45 degree turn wouldn't be available
(since the garage door is many feet in length), so we're gonna need a pic.

I found a great video by a garage door professional on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02KaMvcbuDc

I ended up going with http://www.garagedoornation.com/ and it cost me about $125 to fix everything and about 1 hour of my time. Beats paying the local service company $400+

Everyone says it's risky, as long as you follow simple safety protocols, I had no issues at all. It feels like local service companies are the ones making it seem so "scary".

On Friday, December 7, 2012 at 2:31:11 PM UTC-7, Danny D. wrote:
For most of you on a.h.r, these lessons will be old hat; but for those of
you (like I was) who have never relocated a torsion spring, these lessons
may come in handy in the future.

WHAT DO MOST GARAGE DOOR COMPANIES DO:
- Most charge around $150 to $200 and will do a great job.
- Most promise same day and next-day service.
- I could do the entire job in an hour - so I'm sure they can too.
- Most will simply replace the old spring with the same size new spring.
- Some will 'upgrade' the spring to a longer-life spring (others won't).
- Some may charge for that longer-life upgrade; others won't.
- Most will adjust and lubricate the door and GDO as a bonus to you.
- Some may try to sell you useless extras, such as galvanized springs or
warranties (the 800 numbers I called were the worst offenders).

MAINTENANCE:
- Snap a picture today of your torsion spring setup (I wish I had this).
- Lubricate the garage door rollers, hinges, GDO mechanism, and torsion
bar bearings (two to three of those bearings may be installed).
- Check that the door is parallel when raised and vertical when lowered.
- Operate the door by hand to check spring balance at multiple positions.
- Close the door and check for tilt by looking for light at the bottom.

RESEARCH:
- I've watched EVERY torsion spring DIY on YouTube and none beat DDM
Garage Doors - so all you need is the ddmgaragedoors.com web site.
- The Richard Kinch truetex web site is the second site you'll need.
- No other web sites are needed although I've read EVERY alt.home.repair
thread that mentions garage doors that I can find in the groups.google.com
archive and while there is 'some' really good information on a.h.r - most
of the threads also contain contradictory garbage, and therefore you must
take every thread with a grain of salt.

REPLACEMENT:
- Replacing a torsion spring is easy and requires basic tools.
- The only special tool are two 18" long 1/2" diameter winding bars.
- A few open end wrenches and a large vise grip is all else you'll need.
- Basically, to remove a single broken torsion spring you climb on your
stepladder, unbolt the two set bolts on the winding cone and remove the
two nuts on the spring end plate side. After marking the location of the
cable drums on the torsion rod, you loosen the set bolts on both cable
drums, and then you simply slide the broken torsion spring off the
torsion rod, leaving the torsion rod at the top of the door and only
removing the one cable drum on the side away from the spring anchor plate.
- Basically, to replace the torsion spring, you side the spring onto the
torsion rod, add a bearing if desired, line up the cable drum prior marks
and tighten the cable drums snug against the bearing end plates and
insert the cables holding them in place with a vice grip tensioning the
tension bar and then proceed to wind the spring. When wound the
prescribed 30 quarter turns (7 1/2 full turns for a 7 foot tall door),
you push out the spring about a quarter inch, and then tighten the
winding cone set bolts. Then you check and adjust and lubricate the
hinges, rollers, bearings, and GDO mechanism.
- If it's a two-spring system, the only additional initial step is to
unwind the unbroken spring before touching anything. Unwinding the old
spring is even easier than winding the new spring and is simply the
reverse operation of 30 quarter turns (7 1/2 full turns) for a 7 foot
tall door.

DANGER:
- I searched the news.google.com archives for gory stories of residential
homeowners being hurt or killed by winding garage door springs at home,
and, I just couldn't find much. This doesn't indicate much other than
it's not a big newsworthy topic I guess - but it's a datapoint.
- EVERY (and I mean every) site says it's dangerous - just as chain saws
and table saws and 220 volt motors and swimming pools are dangerous when
accidents happen - so I'll repeat what the sites say. It is dangerous.
- Winding torsion springs is dangerous because "something can go wrong",
and because "something can break".
- However, having said that, if you take normal precautions against both
of those possibilities, you too can (easily) wind a torsion spring.
- There are plenty of things NOT to do, by the way, when winding torsion
springs ... but the list of things to do are well spelled out at the DDM
Garage Door web site.
- Personally, at no point did I "feel" dire danger, especially after
having removed and reinstalled my torsion spring a half-dozen times. It
became 'almost' routine (therein lies the biggest danger, I suspect, to
garage door repairmen).
- The amount of force needed to wind a 0.250" 36" long torsion spring
with 18" steel bars is well within the strength of a normal man.

THEORY:
- The torsion spring acts like a counterweight to balance the
(appreciable) weight of the door.
- The GDO merely pushes the door open or closed - and in and of itself
does NOT open the door.
- The only lateral movement, assuming the cable drums are tightened
against the bearing end plates, as the door goes up and down is merely
the distance between the coils of the springs.
- Everything else should be locked down tightly (which was my problem).
- In general, the garage door repair company skimps on the springs, by
default, by giving you a 10,000 cycle spring.
- You can ask for longer cycle springs, which, if you keep to the same
inside diameter, are merely thicker gauge wire.
- The only thing that matters is the IPPT (inch pounds per turn) that you
need. Your garage door has a weight and a track & drum geometry that
determines the IPPT you need. Period.
- So, whatever new springs you put on must exert the same IPPT as the old
springs. Period.
- Most people want longer-lasting springs, so, all you need is either a
wider inside diameter spring with the same IPPT or a thicker gauge spring
with the same IPPT.
- In general, you likely won't opt for a wider ID so your choice is
merely a thicker gauge spring.
- Adding a second spring does NOT in any way improve your number of
cycles (only the spring geometry makes a difference in lifetime).
- Adding a second spring has some benefits - but they're relatively minor.
- Your limiting factor in improving lifetime will be how much room you
have as thicker-gauge springs with the same ID and IPPT will be longer
than the original.

Garage Door Nation is a great resource.
This video will help out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02KaMvcbuDc

On Friday, December 7, 2012 at 2:31:11 PM UTC-7, Danny D. wrote:
For most of you on a.h.r, these lessons will be old hat; but for those of
you (like I was) who have never relocated a torsion spring, these lessons
may come in handy in the future.

WHAT DO MOST GARAGE DOOR COMPANIES DO:
- Most charge around $150 to $200 and will do a great job.
- Most promise same day and next-day service.
- I could do the entire job in an hour - so I'm sure they can too.
- Most will simply replace the old spring with the same size new spring.
- Some will 'upgrade' the spring to a longer-life spring (others won't).
- Some may charge for that longer-life upgrade; others won't.
- Most will adjust and lubricate the door and GDO as a bonus to you.
- Some may try to sell you useless extras, such as galvanized springs or
warranties (the 800 numbers I called were the worst offenders).

MAINTENANCE:
- Snap a picture today of your torsion spring setup (I wish I had this).
- Lubricate the garage door rollers, hinges, GDO mechanism, and torsion
bar bearings (two to three of those bearings may be installed).
- Check that the door is parallel when raised and vertical when lowered.
- Operate the door by hand to check spring balance at multiple positions.
- Close the door and check for tilt by looking for light at the bottom.

RESEARCH:
- I've watched EVERY torsion spring DIY on YouTube and none beat DDM
Garage Doors - so all you need is the ddmgaragedoors.com web site.
- The Richard Kinch truetex web site is the second site you'll need.
- No other web sites are needed although I've read EVERY alt.home.repair
thread that mentions garage doors that I can find in the groups.google.com
archive and while there is 'some' really good information on a.h.r - most
of the threads also contain contradictory garbage, and therefore you must
take every thread with a grain of salt.

REPLACEMENT:
- Replacing a torsion spring is easy and requires basic tools.
- The only special tool are two 18" long 1/2" diameter winding bars.
- A few open end wrenches and a large vise grip is all else you'll need.
- Basically, to remove a single broken torsion spring you climb on your
stepladder, unbolt the two set bolts on the winding cone and remove the
two nuts on the spring end plate side. After marking the location of the
cable drums on the torsion rod, you loosen the set bolts on both cable
drums, and then you simply slide the broken torsion spring off the
torsion rod, leaving the torsion rod at the top of the door and only
removing the one cable drum on the side away from the spring anchor plate.
- Basically, to replace the torsion spring, you side the spring onto the
torsion rod, add a bearing if desired, line up the cable drum prior marks
and tighten the cable drums snug against the bearing end plates and
insert the cables holding them in place with a vice grip tensioning the
tension bar and then proceed to wind the spring. When wound the
prescribed 30 quarter turns (7 1/2 full turns for a 7 foot tall door),
you push out the spring about a quarter inch, and then tighten the
winding cone set bolts. Then you check and adjust and lubricate the
hinges, rollers, bearings, and GDO mechanism.
- If it's a two-spring system, the only additional initial step is to
unwind the unbroken spring before touching anything. Unwinding the old
spring is even easier than winding the new spring and is simply the
reverse operation of 30 quarter turns (7 1/2 full turns) for a 7 foot
tall door.

DANGER:
- I searched the news.google.com archives for gory stories of residential
homeowners being hurt or killed by winding garage door springs at home,
and, I just couldn't find much. This doesn't indicate much other than
it's not a big newsworthy topic I guess - but it's a datapoint.
- EVERY (and I mean every) site says it's dangerous - just as chain saws
and table saws and 220 volt motors and swimming pools are dangerous when
accidents happen - so I'll repeat what the sites say. It is dangerous.
- Winding torsion springs is dangerous because "something can go wrong",
and because "something can break".
- However, having said that, if you take normal precautions against both
of those possibilities, you too can (easily) wind a torsion spring.
- There are plenty of things NOT to do, by the way, when winding torsion
springs ... but the list of things to do are well spelled out at the DDM
Garage Door web site.
- Personally, at no point did I "feel" dire danger, especially after
having removed and reinstalled my torsion spring a half-dozen times. It
became 'almost' routine (therein lies the biggest danger, I suspect, to
garage door repairmen).
- The amount of force needed to wind a 0.250" 36" long torsion spring
with 18" steel bars is well within the strength of a normal man.

THEORY:
- The torsion spring acts like a counterweight to balance the
(appreciable) weight of the door.
- The GDO merely pushes the door open or closed - and in and of itself
does NOT open the door.
- The only lateral movement, assuming the cable drums are tightened
against the bearing end plates, as the door goes up and down is merely
the distance between the coils of the springs.
- Everything else should be locked down tightly (which was my problem).
- In general, the garage door repair company skimps on the springs, by
default, by giving you a 10,000 cycle spring.
- You can ask for longer cycle springs, which, if you keep to the same
inside diameter, are merely thicker gauge wire.
- The only thing that matters is the IPPT (inch pounds per turn) that you
need. Your garage door has a weight and a track & drum geometry that
determines the IPPT you need. Period.
- So, whatever new springs you put on must exert the same IPPT as the old
springs. Period.
- Most people want longer-lasting springs, so, all you need is either a
wider inside diameter spring with the same IPPT or a thicker gauge spring
with the same IPPT.
- In general, you likely won't opt for a wider ID so your choice is
merely a thicker gauge spring.
- Adding a second spring does NOT in any way improve your number of
cycles (only the spring geometry makes a difference in lifetime).
- Adding a second spring has some benefits - but they're relatively minor.
- Your limiting factor in improving lifetime will be how much room you
have as thicker-gauge springs with the same ID and IPPT will be longer
than the original.

Thanks Danny, I just replaced broken torsion spring myself, and your guide was very helpful. Only thing I would add is that the cable is the real gotcha. I didn't put enough turns on the spring initially, and when the garage door was raised, cables were unraveled. The other thing is that 18" bar was inadequate for me, and 3 foot bar was better to get enough leverage in winding the springs.

On Friday, December 7, 2012 at 1:31:11 PM UTC-8, Danny D. wrote:
For most of you on a.h.r, these lessons will be old hat; but for those of
you (like I was) who have never relocated a torsion spring, these lessons
may come in handy in the future.

WHAT DO MOST GARAGE DOOR COMPANIES DO:
- Most charge around $150 to $200 and will do a great job.
- Most promise same day and next-day service.
- I could do the entire job in an hour - so I'm sure they can too.
- Most will simply replace the old spring with the same size new spring.
- Some will 'upgrade' the spring to a longer-life spring (others won't).
- Some may charge for that longer-life upgrade; others won't.
- Most will adjust and lubricate the door and GDO as a bonus to you.
- Some may try to sell you useless extras, such as galvanized springs or
warranties (the 800 numbers I called were the worst offenders).

MAINTENANCE:
- Snap a picture today of your torsion spring setup (I wish I had this).
- Lubricate the garage door rollers, hinges, GDO mechanism, and torsion
bar bearings (two to three of those bearings may be installed).
- Check that the door is parallel when raised and vertical when lowered.
- Operate the door by hand to check spring balance at multiple positions.
- Close the door and check for tilt by looking for light at the bottom.

RESEARCH:
- I've watched EVERY torsion spring DIY on YouTube and none beat DDM
Garage Doors - so all you need is the ddmgaragedoors.com web site.
- The Richard Kinch truetex web site is the second site you'll need.
- No other web sites are needed although I've read EVERY alt.home.repair
thread that mentions garage doors that I can find in the groups.google.com
archive and while there is 'some' really good information on a.h.r - most
of the threads also contain contradictory garbage, and therefore you must
take every thread with a grain of salt.

REPLACEMENT:
- Replacing a torsion spring is easy and requires basic tools.
- The only special tool are two 18" long 1/2" diameter winding bars.
- A few open end wrenches and a large vise grip is all else you'll need.
- Basically, to remove a single broken torsion spring you climb on your
stepladder, unbolt the two set bolts on the winding cone and remove the
two nuts on the spring end plate side. After marking the location of the
cable drums on the torsion rod, you loosen the set bolts on both cable
drums, and then you simply slide the broken torsion spring off the
torsion rod, leaving the torsion rod at the top of the door and only
removing the one cable drum on the side away from the spring anchor plate..
- Basically, to replace the torsion spring, you side the spring onto the
torsion rod, add a bearing if desired, line up the cable drum prior marks
and tighten the cable drums snug against the bearing end plates and
insert the cables holding them in place with a vice grip tensioning the
tension bar and then proceed to wind the spring. When wound the
prescribed 30 quarter turns (7 1/2 full turns for a 7 foot tall door),
you push out the spring about a quarter inch, and then tighten the
winding cone set bolts. Then you check and adjust and lubricate the
hinges, rollers, bearings, and GDO mechanism.
- If it's a two-spring system, the only additional initial step is to
unwind the unbroken spring before touching anything. Unwinding the old
spring is even easier than winding the new spring and is simply the
reverse operation of 30 quarter turns (7 1/2 full turns) for a 7 foot
tall door.

DANGER:
- I searched the news.google.com archives for gory stories of residential
homeowners being hurt or killed by winding garage door springs at home,
and, I just couldn't find much. This doesn't indicate much other than
it's not a big newsworthy topic I guess - but it's a datapoint.
- EVERY (and I mean every) site says it's dangerous - just as chain saws
and table saws and 220 volt motors and swimming pools are dangerous when
accidents happen - so I'll repeat what the sites say. It is dangerous.
- Winding torsion springs is dangerous because "something can go wrong",
and because "something can break".
- However, having said that, if you take normal precautions against both
of those possibilities, you too can (easily) wind a torsion spring.
- There are plenty of things NOT to do, by the way, when winding torsion
springs ... but the list of things to do are well spelled out at the DDM
Garage Door web site.
- Personally, at no point did I "feel" dire danger, especially after
having removed and reinstalled my torsion spring a half-dozen times. It
became 'almost' routine (therein lies the biggest danger, I suspect, to
garage door repairmen).
- The amount of force needed to wind a 0.250" 36" long torsion spring
with 18" steel bars is well within the strength of a normal man.

THEORY:
- The torsion spring acts like a counterweight to balance the
(appreciable) weight of the door.
- The GDO merely pushes the door open or closed - and in and of itself
does NOT open the door.
- The only lateral movement, assuming the cable drums are tightened
against the bearing end plates, as the door goes up and down is merely
the distance between the coils of the springs.
- Everything else should be locked down tightly (which was my problem).
- In general, the garage door repair company skimps on the springs, by
default, by giving you a 10,000 cycle spring.
- You can ask for longer cycle springs, which, if you keep to the same
inside diameter, are merely thicker gauge wire.
- The only thing that matters is the IPPT (inch pounds per turn) that you
need. Your garage door has a weight and a track & drum geometry that
determines the IPPT you need. Period.
- So, whatever new springs you put on must exert the same IPPT as the old
springs. Period.
- Most people want longer-lasting springs, so, all you need is either a
wider inside diameter spring with the same IPPT or a thicker gauge spring
with the same IPPT.
- In general, you likely won't opt for a wider ID so your choice is
merely a thicker gauge spring.
- Adding a second spring does NOT in any way improve your number of
cycles (only the spring geometry makes a difference in lifetime).
- Adding a second spring has some benefits - but they're relatively minor..
- Your limiting factor in improving lifetime will be how much room you
have as thicker-gauge springs with the same ID and IPPT will be longer
than the original.

On Friday, December 7, 2012 at 3:31:11 PM UTC-6, Danny D. wrote:
For most of you on a.h.r, these lessons will be old hat; but for those of
you (like I was) who have never relocated a torsion spring, these lessons
may come in handy in the future.

WHAT DO MOST GARAGE DOOR COMPANIES DO:
- Most charge around $150 to $200 and will do a great job.
- Most promise same day and next-day service.
- I could do the entire job in an hour - so I'm sure they can too.
- Most will simply replace the old spring with the same size new spring.
- Some will 'upgrade' the spring to a longer-life spring (others won't).
- Some may charge for that longer-life upgrade; others won't.
- Most will adjust and lubricate the door and GDO as a bonus to you.
- Some may try to sell you useless extras, such as galvanized springs or
warranties (the 800 numbers I called were the worst offenders).

MAINTENANCE:
- Snap a picture today of your torsion spring setup (I wish I had this).
- Lubricate the garage door rollers, hinges, GDO mechanism, and torsion
bar bearings (two to three of those bearings may be installed).
- Check that the door is parallel when raised and vertical when lowered.
- Operate the door by hand to check spring balance at multiple positions.
- Close the door and check for tilt by looking for light at the bottom.

RESEARCH:
- I've watched EVERY torsion spring DIY on YouTube and none beat DDM
Garage Doors - so all you need is the ddmgaragedoors.com web site.
- The Richard Kinch truetex web site is the second site you'll need.
- No other web sites are needed although I've read EVERY alt.home.repair
thread that mentions garage doors that I can find in the groups.google.com
archive and while there is 'some' really good information on a.h.r - most
of the threads also contain contradictory garbage, and therefore you must
take every thread with a grain of salt.

REPLACEMENT:
- Replacing a torsion spring is easy and requires basic tools.
- The only special tool are two 18" long 1/2" diameter winding bars.
- A few open end wrenches and a large vise grip is all else you'll need.
- Basically, to remove a single broken torsion spring you climb on your
stepladder, unbolt the two set bolts on the winding cone and remove the
two nuts on the spring end plate side. After marking the location of the
cable drums on the torsion rod, you loosen the set bolts on both cable
drums, and then you simply slide the broken torsion spring off the
torsion rod, leaving the torsion rod at the top of the door and only
removing the one cable drum on the side away from the spring anchor plate.
- Basically, to replace the torsion spring, you side the spring onto the
torsion rod, add a bearing if desired, line up the cable drum prior marks
and tighten the cable drums snug against the bearing end plates and
insert the cables holding them in place with a vice grip tensioning the
tension bar and then proceed to wind the spring. When wound the
prescribed 30 quarter turns (7 1/2 full turns for a 7 foot tall door),
you push out the spring about a quarter inch, and then tighten the
winding cone set bolts. Then you check and adjust and lubricate the
hinges, rollers, bearings, and GDO mechanism.
- If it's a two-spring system, the only additional initial step is to
unwind the unbroken spring before touching anything. Unwinding the old
spring is even easier than winding the new spring and is simply the
reverse operation of 30 quarter turns (7 1/2 full turns) for a 7 foot
tall door.

DANGER:
- I searched the news.google.com archives for gory stories of residential
homeowners being hurt or killed by winding garage door springs at home,
and, I just couldn't find much. This doesn't indicate much other than
it's not a big newsworthy topic I guess - but it's a datapoint.
- EVERY (and I mean every) site says it's dangerous - just as chain saws
and table saws and 220 volt motors and swimming pools are dangerous when
accidents happen - so I'll repeat what the sites say. It is dangerous.
- Winding torsion springs is dangerous because "something can go wrong",
and because "something can break".
- However, having said that, if you take normal precautions against both
of those possibilities, you too can (easily) wind a torsion spring.
- There are plenty of things NOT to do, by the way, when winding torsion
springs ... but the list of things to do are well spelled out at the DDM
Garage Door web site.
- Personally, at no point did I "feel" dire danger, especially after
having removed and reinstalled my torsion spring a half-dozen times. It
became 'almost' routine (therein lies the biggest danger, I suspect, to
garage door repairmen).
- The amount of force needed to wind a 0.250" 36" long torsion spring
with 18" steel bars is well within the strength of a normal man.

THEORY:
- The torsion spring acts like a counterweight to balance the
(appreciable) weight of the door.
- The GDO merely pushes the door open or closed - and in and of itself
does NOT open the door.
- The only lateral movement, assuming the cable drums are tightened
against the bearing end plates, as the door goes up and down is merely
the distance between the coils of the springs.
- Everything else should be locked down tightly (which was my problem).
- In general, the garage door repair company skimps on the springs, by
default, by giving you a 10,000 cycle spring.
- You can ask for longer cycle springs, which, if you keep to the same
inside diameter, are merely thicker gauge wire.
- The only thing that matters is the IPPT (inch pounds per turn) that you
need. Your garage door has a weight and a track & drum geometry that
determines the IPPT you need. Period.
- So, whatever new springs you put on must exert the same IPPT as the old
springs. Period.
- Most people want longer-lasting springs, so, all you need is either a
wider inside diameter spring with the same IPPT or a thicker gauge spring
with the same IPPT.
- In general, you likely won't opt for a wider ID so your choice is
merely a thicker gauge spring.
- Adding a second spring does NOT in any way improve your number of
cycles (only the spring geometry makes a difference in lifetime).
- Adding a second spring has some benefits - but they're relatively minor.
- Your limiting factor in improving lifetime will be how much room you
have as thicker-gauge springs with the same ID and IPPT will be longer
than the original.

HELLO Danny,

One question,

Does it matter changing the length of the spring? fro example I measured 27.5in and in the store available they have 29" same diameter same wire thickness.

I hope you can response soon since wife is getting mad about parking outside the garage.

Thanks
Daniel C.

On Fri, 25 Aug 2017 09:44:45 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

HELLO Danny,

One question,

Does it matter changing the length of the spring? fro example I measured 27.5in and in the store available they have 29" same diameter same wire thickness.

I hope you can response soon since wife is getting mad about parking outside the garage.

Thanks
Daniel C

In case Danny D. does not respond soon enough. Use this link:

DDM Garage Doors, Inc.
http://ddmgaragedoors.com/index.php

Plenty of videos & tutorials there or on YouTube.