My southern AZ home is eight years old. The metal garage door is double-car and sectional, with two torsion springs. Last Sunday I heard a strange "sproing" sound. No idea what that was. A couple of hours later I went to the garage and tried to open the garage door. Then I realized that the sound had come from a broken spring. I did some web research and decided to DIY replace the springs. This website was extremely helpful in enabling me to figure out what springs to order. Introduction to Garage Doors I bought upgraded springs that (in theory) should last 3x as long as the original springs. They are 60% longer than the original, while the coil wire is 12% thicker. I placed the order on Monday morning and received the springs (shipped from a Phoenix suburb) yesterday afternoon (one day later.) I am very happy with the sales support and order fulfillment provided by DDM Garage Doors. I managed to install the springs that afternoon, without causing property damage or personal injury. The dangerous part of this job is untensioning and tensioning the springs. That is well documented in the DIY instructions provided in the above-mentioned website. I bought a 36" length of zinc-plated 0.5" steel rod from Home Depot and used a hacksaw to cut this into two equal pieces. It is possible to buy this tool from the vendor above for $8, which is a very good deal considering I paid ~$7 for the rod and also had to buy hacksaw blades ($5.50 for qty. 5). However, that tool would ship from the East so in the interest of timely repair, I fabricated my own tool.
Yeah, I've done this, it's not fun. The trick is to get the tension correct and balanced so the door is "light". The other thing I learned is to make sure there are gaps in the coils once you complete. This is hard as you have to pull the spring out from the center mount while tensioning it at the same time. If you don't do this, the friction builds and the door feels too heavy at first, but then you can't shut it once it's open. Good luck!
Yes, after tensioning each spring, I used a small hammer to tap on the rod while inserted in the coil cone, thus stretching the spring end 1/4" to provide the coil spacing as you suggested. Then I tightened the setscrews on the cone. The test of spring tension is that (when the opener mechanism is released from the door) the closed door stays closed, the open door stays open, and the door at midway remains there.
That's a great web site. I added a horizontal brace to my 5 year old double wide door a year ago to prevent sagging and I need to tweak the spring tension to offset the additional weight a little. When I was a kid, I was in our garage when one of the springs (extension type) broke and shot across the garage and put a nice hole in the sheet rock. It scared the heck out of me.
My garage doors are held open by springs, too. Monstrous railway-car springs that I use as door stops.
