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Garage door spring?

On a dual spring system, when the once dominant and worn out spring breaks the other one is taking the load and will fail shortly after. A good repairman will tell to change both to save you money. A bad one will wait for you to call him a month later to make a second call for twice the price.
If you have a one spring door then your only problem is to make sure you get the correct rotation.
 
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B-rock said:
Life is dangerous, OMG don't drive on the freeway you will die instantly, DONT FILL YOUR GASS TANK!!! it will blow up!!! get in a car accident, both cars are going to blow!!! better run!!


Use your head, Use 2 bars to tension or untension a garage door spring, One bar you will use to move the spring, the other rests against the wall while you re position the bar that you will use to tension the spring, It's a slow process and yes it gets tight, but if you are confident in your abilities then go for it. In a pinch I have used the broken spring, It sucks but its better then lifting a dead weight graage door, My parents have an older solid wood door, Had to use a floor jack and jack stands to get it up far enough to crawl out. No way anyone could lift it.

It's great to ask Questions. but also in your head you should have an idea if you are within your level of abilities or not.
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This covers a few post. Im a millwright at a power plant, for you that don't know what that is its basically a industrial mechanic. A garage door does not scare me in any way
yes I know the spring can be dangerous. You should see what we do at work. I asked the questions more because in my mind a half spring should still work, maybe not optimal but get buy for a few days, and i wanted to see if anyone else had this happen. And if I was wrong I wouldn't waste my time. I have no problem lifting it by myself with out the opener. But my wife can't and I have to work the next few days so does she.
 
bgaidan said:
There are three things I won't fuck with:
1) Overhead concrete
2) Garage door springs
3) The Dutch
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Nah, it's not so bad as long as you are sober and keep your head in the game.
I've done those springs a few times. It's not fun, but I don't dodge the job either.

Since I prefer to not do it often I pay a little extra to get the 100,000 use springs instead of the cheaper 10 or 20k use springs though.
 
HELL BOUND said:
This covers a few post. Im a millwright at a power plant, for you that don't know what that is its basically a industrial mechanic. A garage door does not scare me in any way
yes I know the spring can be dangerous. You should see what we do at work. I asked the questions more because in my mind a half spring should still work, maybe not optimal but get buy for a few days, and i wanted to see if anyone else had this happen. And if I was wrong I wouldn't waste my time. I have no problem lifting it by myself with out the opener. But my wife can't and I have to work the next few days so does she.
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Fellow millwright here too, Semiconductor industry. You got this.
 
HELL BOUND said:
i wanted to see if anyone else had this happen. And if I was wrong I wouldn't waste my time.
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be sure and get back to us with the results
my money is still on the spring running out of poop when the door's about halfway up, then the cables falling off the drums

make sure and pull the adjuster out a bit when you wind it up, as the spring will coil bind in the axial direction if you don't
yeah the spring will look like ass and not stack up nicely, that's totally normal when you got nowhere near enough turns
 
I put them up for 10 years. Your short spring has not got the correct length so it is not going to balance. The amount of lift is determined by the number of turns on the spring so if you put that many turns on that spring it is going to be one wound MFer. When you unlock it it is going to launch. I've tried to rig one up a couple times without being successful enough to leave a customer that way. To get any lift you will launch it if, you wind it too little when you open it all the way off the spring winds the wrong way then no tension on cables and then bang cables off and you have a real mess.
Do you not have a garage door place local? You could get get two ends and double spring it.
 
If you are brave weld those two coils together and tighten that baby up. I vaguely remember taking one down that some old timer had did that to to get by till we got out there. You would stand a better chance with doing that than your short spring.
 
https://youtu.be/MKq4m51YRoI

Yep check the link this guy did it. Do at your own peril and never get your head under a winding bar. And NEVER use screwdrivers or anything like that to wind them. If you don't have proper winding bars 1/2 solid stock round bar will work in a pinch. I have repaired a door where the previous owner died. Blood was still on the floor some. Not really sure if the blow from the winding rod killed him or falling head first off the ladder onto a concrete floor did.
 
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be sure and get back to us with the results
my money is still on the spring running out of poop when the door's about halfway up, then the cables falling off the drums

make sure and pull the adjuster out a bit when you wind it up, as the spring will coil bind in the axial direction if you don't
yeah the spring will look like ass and not stack up nicely, that's totally normal when you got nowhere near enough turns
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no dice. This is what happened. About 1/3rd of the way up it just quit. Now I know. Parked the wife's 4runner outside and will wait for new parts. Worth a shot i guess.
 
Runningquarters said:
If you are brave weld those two coils together and tighten that baby up. I vaguely remember taking one down that some old timer had did that to to get by till we got out there. You would stand a better chance with doing that than your short spring.
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This crossed my mind but figured for sure it would just blow apart as soon as I put a load on it. I've seen people weld leaf springs for a trail fix and they cracked with in 5 min.
 
HELL BOUND said:
This crossed my mind but figured for sure it would just blow apart as soon as I put a load on it. I've seen people weld leaf springs for a trail fix and they cracked with in 5 min.
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It works. I did mine. Welded about 3 inches. It held for about 2 years. And broke on a different spot. :laughing:
 
Still waiting for bloody finger pics
 
HELL BOUND said:
This crossed my mind but figured for sure it would just blow apart as soon as I put a load on it. I've seen people weld leaf springs for a trail fix and they cracked with in 5 min.
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I swear back in high school we had a dude with an old school land rover, one day in shop class he wheels it in with a broken winch cable.

Lays about 3 inches of the cable side by side and welds it up. :lmao:

No idea how long it held but boy did we have a good laugh at that.
 
MattS said:
It works. I did mine. Welded about 3 inches. It held for about 2 years. And broke on a different spot. :laughing:
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Thats just not how my luck works. I can wait a few days. I was more trying to rig it so the wife didn't have to park outside.
 
Pukemaggots said:
Just set up a pulley and counter weight system.
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It would have to be a big counter weight. That door is 3 times as heavy as I figured it was. Its insulated and has glass windows on the top row.
 
HELL BOUND said:
It would have to be a big counter weight. That door is 3 times as heavy as I figured it was. Its insulated and has glass windows on the top row.
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drop it onto a bathroom scale
div by 2
then div that by two to get individual weights for each side
maybe get a couple extra cable spools and then put them with the weights outboard of the tracks on the axle...

no real experience doing this, just thinking out loud how I'd go about it
 
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Dookey said:
Mine wasn't. It was 2 pieces. I can see where a solid bar makes a bunch more sense.
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that's really odd, one would expect the door to cock in its tracks real bad if it didn't have the cables locked in sync making sure it went up straight
 
HELL BOUND said:
It would have to be a big counter weight. That door is 3 times as heavy as I figured it was. Its insulated and has glass windows on the top row.
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I think 300-500 pounds was average for them last time I looked years ago. Others even heavier if they older wood ones.
Yeah, they are no joke. People get their dogs killed by them more often than you think. Always make sure that laser is no higher than a few inches off the ground, some old ones would be like 12 inches and enough for a pet to lay down and get killed.

Every single time I close my door I always stand there with my hand on the button watching the door line to make 100% sure my dog doesn't just happen to walk by or anything.
 
Well the new spring and winding rods showed up 3 days early. Got it installed and found a chart that said 35 turns for a 8ft door. Had to adjust the end cables a couple times to make sure it wasn't lifting crooked. All in all not a bad job. And sorry to disappoint some but no blood :flipoff2:
20210101_115738.jpg
 
B-rock said:
Fellow millwright here too, Semiconductor industry. You got this.
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Good to hear. I feel like millwrights are a dieing breed. I really wish schools would push trades more. I know we need computer driven industry but if we loose the hands on people this country is screwed.
 
Clearly photoshop or someone else's door, everyone said you were gon' die if the garage door man didn't do it for you!
 
some of you guys need to turn in your man cards :laughing: i can install a complete door by myself in less than 4hrs
 
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