Garage door torsion spring broken ... and ... I have no questions! :)

[Danny D'Amico]

Hi Oren, Given color is meaningless, what you were probably getting at is that almost everyone replaces the old spring with the same size wire gauge spring.

My problem was that the old spring had something like a 10,000 duty cycle rating. I wanted to replace it with a spring with something like a 40,000 cycle rating.

If I open the door 4 times a day for 365 days a year, the 10,000 cycle spring would last only about 7 years, while the 40,000 cycle spring would last about 27 years (within round-off errors).

These are the dimensions of the old springs: 2"ID, 0.225" wire gauge, 24-1/4" long, P/N SPB-225-24-25L/R

These are the dimensions of the new springs: 2"ID, 0.243" wire gauge, 35-1/4" long, P/N SPB-243-35-25L/R

All that matters for duty cycle is the thickness. You'll note that the old springs were 0.225" thick, while the new springs are 0.243" thick. This gives me the additional duty cycle rating.

Of course, the new springs are therefore about a foot longer and a few pounds heavier than the old springs were, and they cost about

15% more; but, the benefit is that I get four times the use out of something that is exactly the same effort to install.

BTW, the spring calculators on Dan Musick's DDM Garage Doors web site makes all these calculations a breeze.

PS: I wouldn't recommend anyone *other* than Dan if you need to replace your springs. He's a great guy. He's helpful. He'll talk to you on the phone. He'll fix his videos if you see a problem with them. And, he will even cut you a break when you need it (he gave me free stuff, for example, when I ran into bearing problems).

[Danny D'Amico]

Yeah. Everyone focuses on the color. Even if there *was* a standard, the springs I chose are a wholly different size, so, the original color (if it even could be ascertained), wouldn't have mattered.

BTW, I complete the job, twice, today, before taking the grandkids out for trick or treating, and, then heading out to an adult gettogether.

I have to complete it one more time tomorrow. gnite...

[Danny D.]

UPDATE:

The deed is done.

1. I replaced the old 24 inch 112# lift springs with 35 112# lift springs.
2. The duty cycle rose from 12K cycles (7 years) to 41K cycles (28 years).
3. I replaced the old plastic center bearing with a heavy duty bearing.
4. I replaced the old metal end plate bearings with heavy duty bearings.

The only problem I had was that I made a noob mistake when I took all the bearings out to snap this picture for you guys:

When I put those bearings back, I put them in BACKWARD! (auuuurgggh!)

I didn't realize this, until I noticed the door opening kind'a funny (as the bearings were pushed OUT of their seating location!).

Anyway, it's all good now (I'll write to Dan Musick and ask him to beef up the tutorials, since they don't actually say which direction the bearings are supposed to go). That way, the NEXT person following in our footsteps doesn't make that idiotic mistake (slaps head!):

BTW, Since the new spring is 10 inches longer than the old spring, I did get to see how deeply my indents went, as shown below:

Notice the quarter inch markings, which is described in Dan's videos at his DDM Garage Doors website.

Also notice the spackle on the torsion rod.

Given that, I think the springs I replaced were the originals.

[Danny D.]

I did the best I could.

The one good thing is that the right end flag of this large door is well anchored, since I did that last time when I fixed the smaller door end flag:

But, the left end flag is just swaying in the breeze, because it has nothing under it. But, luckily, this center support doesn't sway because we have TWO springs (which counteract the twisting forces):

[Danny D.]

LESSONS LEARNED:

The only really new lesson learned was to CHECK the direction of the bearings before winding the springs!

I had to take my entire setup apart TWICE, simply because I took all the bearings out (to photograph them), and FORGOT what direction to put them back! (mea culpa)

LESSONS LEARNED:

Here is a shot of the old parts, and all the tools used:

1. 18" long 1/2 inch round soft steel winding bars (from DDM garage doors)
2. 7/16 open-end wrench (for all set screws)
3. Two 9/16" open-ended wrenches (for the center support bolts)
4. 10" vise grip (to lock the torsion bar when winding)
5. Safety glasses
6. Marker (to mark initial pulley position & spring extra quarter inch)
7. Tape measure (to measure old spring coil thickness)
8. Plastic pipe (to push out the old bearings from the end plates)
9. Mallet (to push new spring out 1/4 inch from initial stop point)
10. Oil can (to oil the new springs to minimize friction & binding)
11. Flashlight (to see whether the cable is coiling properly)
12. Spray paint (to paint a straight line when all is wound)

Note: I threw away the spray-paint can as it was out of paint, so, unfortunately, it's not in the DIY tools list photo above.

[Vic Smith]

Good stuff, Danny. I had a new steel door put up last year.

2 spring. Didn't cost much, and I didn't want to deal with getting rid of the old wood door. Anyway it works smooth as silk, and is dead quiet going up and down. Thing is, when the opener is detached, it seems heavy to lift. Maybe like lifting 40-50 lbs. In the past I tightened my springs so the door could be lifted with one finger. Less work for the motor. Don't recall you mentioning the "correct" tension. Any advice on that?

[Danny D.]

Yup!

I wrote to Dan (and to Richard Kinch) to ask them to update their tutorials with this information.

[Danny D.]

The main thing I fault the new door installers with (and so does Richard Kinch) is that they save a few bucks giving you a 7-year spring, while it only costs you a few bucks to upgrade that to 28 years if you choose the spring yourself.

That's way way way too much. It should be almost weightless. There's no sense in making the GDO do all that work (plus, they have cheap plastic gears, I'm told).

If the spring is the correct spring and it is wound the correct number of quarter turns, the door shouldn't weigh more than about a half a pound or so (i.e., just enough to keep it from springing up when you detach the GDO and open the door half way and then let it go).

Mine I could open with my pinky almost. Certainly just a couple of fingers lifted the door once I adjusted the quarter turns properly.

Go to the DDM site and read the part about adjusting the doors.

Yup. Last time, I helped a friend with his door which was too heavy when we tested it after replacing cables. So, we simply added a quarter turn or two to adjust the door until it was weightless again.

The rule of thumb is to multiply quarter turns by the number of feet (assuming normal homeowner garage door geometries) and add two.

So, for my 7' tall door, that's (4x7)+2=30 quarter turns.

If 30 quarter turns works out for you when you do the weightless test, then you're done. If not, you add or subtract quarter turns just like you did in the past.

In my case this time, I didn't need to. Last time I did. Different doors though, so, each one will be different in that respect.

[Danny D.]

Just to be clear, there "is" a standard color code:

It's just that nobody really follows it; and, even if they did, it's hard to tell what color a spring is after being on a door for ten years.

For example, what color is my old spring painted splotch?

Is that splotch in the middle of both springs tan? gold? yellow?

[Danny D.]

Dan Musick personally told me NOT to measure the number of turns of the painted stripe in the spring, because it's much more logical (and intuitive) to just count quarter turns.

He also suggested, last time, I paint an additional stripe AFTER the spring is installed.

The results show here, where you can see residual tension on the spring when the door is all the way up (i.e., the spring is unwound):

[Danny D'Amico]

I just belatedly realized another reason why I wouldn't trust a count of spirals on a torsion spring.

Notice in this photo of my old & new springs, the painted blue line doesn't even extend the full length of the spring.

So, any count of spirals would be off.

[Danny D'Amico]

I was just checking this thread to see if anyone updated it, and noticed this prediction of mine.

In a perfect world, replacing both springs would take about an hour; but it took me, oh, about 3 hours, I'd say, in toto.

Of course, that's because I had to take time to review the videos on the DDM Garage Doors site, and, unfortunately, because I made the mistake of putting the bearings on backward (hence, I actually did the job three times).

Hmmm mmmm... I guess, since I did the job 3 times, and it took me

3 hours, that averages out to about an hour ... in the end.

:)