Garage Door Mechanical Refresh

[CarbonSteel]

The torsion spring on my uninsulated 7’ x 16’ garage door snapped on Monday rendering the door inoperable. In the past, I would typically call up a garage door repair shop and have them tackle the job, but this time, I elected to do it myself.

My house was built in 2002 and in typical tract home builder fashion, they installed one torsion spring versus two and this breakage would be the fourth time. After reading the How to Convert from One Garage Door Spring to Two article from DDM Garage Doors, Inc. and using their Find My Spring Database Tool to find which two springs would replace the single .250” x 2” x 30” spring I had, I headed to Amazon to find what I needed.

I ordered:

• Pair of 207 X 2" X 24" Garage Door Torsion Springs with Winding Bars ($77.00)
• Pair of 7' Garage Door Cable For Torsion Springs ($7.88)
• Garage Door Cable Drums Up To 8' High Doors 400-8 (Pair) ($14.09)
• DURA-LIFT Ultra-Life MAX 2" Sealed 6200ZZ Bearing Nylon Garage Door Roller, 4" Stem, Pack of 10 ($23.89)
• Residential End Bearing Plates Flange Includes Bearing ($12.32)

The garage door roller brackets use sheet metal screws to mount them and many were stripped, so I drilled them out and installed bolts and locknuts which helped quiet down the creaking sounds that happen as the door opens and closes. In fact, now the Chamberlain belt whine is the main sound that you can hear which is nice as it is not very loud.

The door rollers and the end bearing plates were worn out (they were about 4 years old). The overall job including the drilling out and replacing the screws took about 2 hours. The Single Spring to a Pair [Garage Door Torsion Springs] video from Express Garage Door Parts made the job a snap (no pun intended).

I pre-tensioned each spring 31 quarter turns using the supplied winding bars, locked both of them in place, and oiled them liberally using 3 in 1 garage door lube. The included winding bars made the tensioning a simple job. Afterwards, the 180 pound door could be lifted with one hand versus taking two people to lift it enough to insert boards under to replace the cables.

The overall cost was about $150 which saved me at least $350 since all of the garage door shops around me mark up the cost of the part (some of them to an unreasonable level) and then add the labor. At no point did I feel technically challenged due to the excellent instructions and videos online. Of course, wearing safety glasses, positioning yourself out of the line of the winding bars, and taking your time will allow you to easily complete this task.

 

[MasterSolenoid]

Deleted .... I now see you ordered the Dura Lift Rollers. There good.

 

[CincyDavid]

I've never gone to that much effort with a door project, kudos to you. On the subject of noise, I have found that spritzing a little garage door lube on every spot where metal moves against metal, makes the door significantly quieter with no squeaking. The house is only 2 years old, so far so good on the spring(s). My other house still has the LONG coil springs along the rails, and a 40 year old wood door that will need to be replaced one of these days.