If torsion spring breaks on metal garage door

Hypothetically, on a metal garage door, if the torsion spring breaks, can you disengage the garage door from the garage door opener (track) and open and close it?

Suppose there are 2 torsion springs and only one spring breaks, same question?

Reply to
Doug
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Hi, When it happened to me, I temporarily joined broken spring together with small U bolt and rewound it to just open the door once to bring cars outside. Then I closed the door down, called the service guy.

After watching him do it, now I can work on door problems myself.

Reply to
Tony Hwang

The release if for the opener. The springs are to make the door light enough so the opener has to do only small ammount of work. If the springs break the opener will not have enough power to open the door.

With the springs working, the door is light enough to lift by hand when the opener quits working and the release is pulled.

You can pull the release and lift the door when the springs break IF you are strong enough. It may take two or three people depending on the weight of the door.

Reply to
Ralph Mowery

I have some experience with a single broken spring on a 2-spring door. No problem lifting and lowering the door by hand. But, I could only lift it so high, and it wouldn't stay in that position. So I clamped a vise grip on the rail to hold the door open. Did that for a few months, a couple of times per week as needed.

Reply to
Smitty Two

Hi Doug,

Q: Can you disengage the garage door from the GDO with a broken spring? A: Yes. There is no relationship to the spring whatsoever for disengaging.

Q: Can you then open & close the door manually (with a broken spring)? A: Yes. But.

The torsion spring was counterbalancing the door - so - now YOU need to lift the weight of the door which 'was' handled by the broken spring. My single-car door is 127 pounds. A double-car door can easily be double that.

BTW, "closing" the door will be easy (gravity does the work for you). But think about how you would go about 'stopping' two to four 50-pound bags of cement falling 7 feet along the tracks.

Q: If one of two torsion springs break, can you manually open the door? A: The answer is the same. The only difference is that half the weight of the door is on you, the other half is on the matched unbroken spring.

There are two (and only two) web pages you need to fully understand garage door torsion springs. I've read dozens, and I've watched every youtube video out there - but you only need these two pages:

  1. Richard Kinch (background material)
  2. Dan Musick (DDM Garage Doors DIY info)
Reply to
Danny D.

I've seen the youtube videos and web pages where they actually weld the spring together temporarily and they also use a u-shaped spring clamp.

Seems to me the u-shaped spring clamp is the easiest for a homeowner to get the car out of the garage.

The only thing is that I winced when I saw the video of the guy winding the temporarily repaired spring.

I kept thinking to myself "what if that spring clamp broke?"

So, its' probably slightly more dangerous to wind a temporarily fixed spring - but it will work for sure.

Reply to
Danny D.

Thank you Danny for the help / explanation. Appreciate it !!!

Reply to
Doug

Tony, you're brave. I don't think I want to attempt it. I've seen a video to replace a torsion spring but still hesitate on trying it. I'm game for many things but not all :( . I once watched my dad replace a garage spring (parallel to the track) and I know he had a job doing it alone but he did manage to get it correct. Well, bottom line is.... you did good !!

Reply to
Doug

Gotcha. Thanks !!

Reply to
Doug

Clever... I'll have to remember that in case. Thanks.

Reply to
Doug

Hi, Using U bolt is only one time deal to get the cars out of garage. I have pair of winding bars I made of steel rod in 2 feet length. I wear work gloves, safety goggles when I work on springs. Have done it only couple times over the years. Springs last long time.

Reply to
Tony Hwang

There are scores of videos of common people just like you and me replacing our torsion springs.

Winding a spring is "almost" trivial.

The only thing that makes it decidedly not trivial is the dire consequence of something going wrong.

However, the spring-winding task, in and of itself, is quite trivial for a man of normal strength.

Reply to
Danny D.

I understand.

There are at least THREE temporary repair options, two of which were not initially obvious to me:

  1. Use a grooved spring coupler to connect the two pieces
  2. Clamp the two pieces together with a spring clamp
  3. Use the shortened spring with the GDO disconnected

Here's a video where a supplier of the grooved spring couplers (DMATools.com) shows how the moon-shaped spring coupler is used to repair a broken torsion spring:

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Here's a supplier of the cable clamps who also provides a detailed DIY for how to temporarily repair broken torsion springs:
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Here's a video where they used a 'spring clamp' to temporarily fix 3 3/8" and 6" torsion springs.
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Personally, if I had to temporarily repair a garage door torsion spring, I would probably disconnect the garage door opener and remove the winding cone from the broken end and insert it onto the long end.

Then I would manually open the garage door, with the shorter spring counterbalancing 'most' of the weight, but not all.

Since torsion springs are so inexpensive (less than fifty bucks in most cases), I wouldn't bother with either the grooved spring coupler or the U-shaped spring clamp unless I happened to have them in the garage already.

The beauty of those two methods is that the spring retains its strength - but the beauty of the shorter spring method is that you don't need anything to temporarily fix the torsion spring.

Of course, winding either a repaired torsion spring, or winding a shorter (but old) torsion spring has its dangers - so - when mine broke a couple of weeks ago, I simply hefted the door open, and then left the garage door down until the new spring arrived by UPS.

Installing the new torsion spring takes less time than it took me to watch all the youtube videos! :)

Reply to
Danny D.

What if you have both Springs broke. How do I open my door?

Reply to
22hd74

Get some extra muscle!

If all else fails, you can isolate each individual panel (beginning with the topmost) and raise each separately. I.e., the opposite of when the door is assembled/installed.

Do *not* play with the torsion springs! You are likely to lose a finger (or three).

Reply to
Don Y

You are probably best off if you can just leave it closed until you get the new springs installed. Like Don says, a lot of muscle or separate the panels. I know my 150 MPH rated door is not going up without the springs, even if you have a couple weight lifter friends. This thing is hundreds of pounds.

Reply to
gfretwell

The one time I saw a garage guy open a door with broken spring, he used a come along "cable hoist" tool from the door frame to the lower roller. Seemed to work fine for him. You might need two workers and two come alongs.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

2 Torsion springs stories:

1 - A coworker got out of his car and pressed the GDO button next to the door into his house. The door started to close when the spring on his side broke and smacked him upside the head.

His wife, who saw him pull into the driveway, got curious when he didn't come into the house and went out to the garage. She found him lying on the floor, semi-conscious, with a bloodied face and head.

He spent a few days in the hospital after getting sewn up and was out of work for a few weeks. When he came back his face look like...well, I guess it looked like he had been hit by a torsion spring.

2 - My door has a single spring across the top. I tried to close the door with the GDO and when it got about halfway down I heard a loud bang and door stopped. I looked above the door and saw that the spring had broken and the cable around the pulley was loose, kind of half on and half off.

Not quite knowing what the deal was, I decided to pull the emergency release on the GDO. As soon as I pulled the release, the door dropped violently another 2 feet or so, when the cable got tangled up on something and stopped the door - just as my 2 year old daughter ran from the porch and into the garage. Holy crap!

I don't know if I had ever hugged her as hard as I did that day.

Reply to
DerbyDad03

My garage door is an older wooden 9 foot wide. I had one of the coil springs break (not torsion, but the long springs alongside the door track). [is there a name for those springs?]

Anyhow, while the door was up, I removed the other spring, because I could not get the door to lower with only one spring because it was pulling sideways. I knew if I left the door open, I'd have raccoons in there making a mess.

I lowered the door onto some junk tires (off the rims), so it would not crash against the floor and possibly break something on the door. Then I raised the door a half inch with my floorjack to remove the tires.

When it came time to open the door, (you cant install those springs with the door closed), I got a prybar under it, then a 2x4, and raised it enough to get my floorjack under it. I jacked it as high as it would go (about 16"), then using a second floorjack, with blocks of wood stacked on top, I got the door up so it was about 3.5 feet from the floor.

At that point, I was able to raise it the rest of the way by hand, but I had someone there to put 2x4s under the raised door, to make sure it stayed up. Then I replaced the springs.

You cant lift them doors by hand when they are all the way down, but once they are halfway up, you can. Either way, I'd put a prop (2x4) under the door so it dont come crashing down on you.

With that said, "Torsion Springs" are a different matter. I'm thinking you'd lift the door the same way, but I dont know how you work on those springs with the door UP. I have never had torsion springs, and really would not want them. If I did have them, I'd probably hire a professional to do the work. Those springs are dangerous!

I did once remove a garage door from a garage that was going to be demolished, and it had torsion springs. This was many years ago, so I cant recall all the details. I just remember taking the whole door apart, piece by piece, and I didn't take the spring. I just converted that door to use the side springs, since I already had the door tracks. I just wanted the door itself.

Reply to
Paintedcow

On 04/04/2016 1:59 PM, DerbyDad03 wrote: ...

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Don't doubt the guy got hit but can't see how it could've been a _torsion_ spring that did it...if the linear spring wasn't installed correctly with the cable thru it to keep it from going somewhere when it broke yes...but the torsion springs are wound around the solid bar; there's nowhere for them to go flying to off of it.

Replacing them isn't _that_ tough; done it several times. One does need to ensure have the proper toolset/skillset to rewind one w/o letting it get away from you, though.

Reply to
dpb

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