Assenine Garage Door Cable Setup

[maradcliff]

My wooden garage door has the cable that goes to the lift spring hook to a small peg on the bottom of the door. It sort of looks like a nail head. In other words, if I pounded in a nail and left the head stick out about 1/8" and hooked the loop on the end of the cable between the wood and the nail head. What happens is this: If I lift the door all the way up, which is slightly higher than the open position which the spring lifts it to, the cable often pops off that peg because there is no pressure on the cable at that point. Then I have to spend a half hour running it around all the pulleys and routing it back to that peg. This happens quite regularly because I have to often lift the door to it's maximum height to get my pickup truck in there. I am getting real tired of fixing this every few weeks. Is there another method of attaching that cable to the door? By the way, that peg is part of the bottom roller assembly bracket.

Thanks

Mark

[trader4]

I'd be a lot more concerned about the cable flying off with the door closed, than slipping off when it's open! This arrangement is extremely dangerous and I wouldn't operate the door until it's safely secured. This could kill someone.

Normally, the cable ends are fastened to the door track at an appropriate location with an S hook. The ones I've seen have holes along the track to facilitate this. There should also be safety cables on the springs. If it's an older door, it very likely would not have them either. These are cables that go through the springs and are fastened on either end. That way, if a spring breaks, it can't fly off and hit someone or something.

Last summer I was installing a garage door opener on my second bay. After just about being done, I was testing it and all of a sudden Kaboom! The end broke off one of the springs while I was standing near it. Had nothing to do with installing the opener, it was just it's time to go. This was in a 17 year old house. The door had no safety cables, so the spring just went flying.

I was very lucky to not be hit. I was also lucky that it happened at that time and not when my Porsche 911 was sitting there, as it surely would have hit that.

[RayV]

Doesn't sound very safe the way it is set up but when the door is fully opened there should be just enough tension to keep it together. Try tightening up the springs until you get just a slight bit of tension when the door is fully opened. And make sure there are safety wires going all the way through the springs as was already stated.

[tinacci336]

I had the same thing happen to me one time, only the spring went inches from my head , hit and split a 2x6 into. After that I put a cable through the springs and anchored both ends for safety.