Bam! Garage door over-the-door torsion spring snapped! How to replace?

That's why I taped the ends and listened for the click of them seating (as Dan Musick says in his wonderful DIYs).

I've wound and unwound this one spring perhaps a half dozen times this weekend - so I can attest that it can be done safely.

See this picture for how I set it up for safety:

I just tried that with the last quarter turn of unwinding. I simply pulled the bar away - and it spun back to the zero turn level on its own.

It was undramatic - but - of course, that was only the last quarter turn.

I can see that it would work though - but it's just as easy to unwind it 30 quarter turns, IMHO.

I think you're right. A garage door isn't so simple anymore.

Dan at DDM Garage Doors says my real problem is that the cable drum ends do not have the end bearing plate securely fixed. He's gonna send me some angle iron and 7/16ths head 3-inch lag screws to secure the sides.

He says the middle can't move unless the sides let it move. I'm still trying to understand that - as it's not intuitive at all to me that the ends are what is making the middle bend.

Here is a picture of the gap on one end:

I must apologize for not understanding how you adjust a torsion spring earlier this month. You are correct.

What confused me is that you're not actually adjusting the spring, per se. What you're doing is adding or removing a quarter turn or two.

I had to do it myself (adjust the door) and only recently (belatedly) understood the math involved.

The 'math' is that the garage door is 7 feet tall and the 4-inch diameter cable drum is about 13 inches in circumference. That means that each revolution of the cable drum is about a foot of cable update - hence the garage door moves up by a foot, so it would take about

Of course, the cable drum, the spring, and the hollow steel bar all spin together - so it takes about 7.5 revolutions of the entire apparatus to lift the garage door.

You add about a half turn to keep tension on the cables so that they don't slip off the cable drum - so - the net is that you need 7.5 turns, or 30 quarter turns.

What happened for me to make me learn what you were saying was that my door was moving up too fast with the 30 quarter turns. So I had to "adjust" the tension of the spring by reducing the turns to 29 turns.

So now I know what you mean by adjusting the tension of the spring! Sorry for being thick.

I also needed to adjust the cable lengths but that was via a different method.

Dan Musick uses the "never never never" triplet when discussing screwdrivers. IMHO, the $8 cost for the winding bars was worth it - even if they can't be used for anything else realistically.

BTW, here's a unique tool for winding & unwinding springs:

UPDATE:

Here are some pictures after I disassembled the garage door overhead apparatus and tried to shore it up with steel.

Here's the overall picture with the apparatus removed:

Yeah, Lol.... I've seen those advertised. No self-respecting doorman would use one!

Final update. All done. a) Relocated the spring end plate b) Added a spring end plate bearing c) Reinforced the spring end plate d) Reinforced both bearing end plates

Final results here:

Final update. All done. a) Relocated the spring end plate b) Added a spring end plate bearing c) Reinforced the spring end plate d) Reinforced both bearing end plates

Final results here:

a) Relocated the spring end plate b) Added a spring end plate bearing c) Reinforced the spring end plate d) Reinforced both bearing end plates

Overall results here:

a) Relocated the spring end plate b) Added a spring end plate bearing c) Reinforced the spring end plate d) Reinforced both bearing end plates

Overall results here: