When doing home maintenance of any kind, it's important to be aware of the risks. This is especially true when dealing with the springs on your garage door. Springs hold a lot of tension and if they are improperly dealt with they can cause serious injury to the repairman. However, if you're a disciple of Bob Villa or any of the do-it-yourself gurus and decided that you can handle the task, you want to make sure that you have the right tools and, more importantly, the right information. As a technician, I don't want anyone getting hurt on something as potentially rewarding and cost efficient as spring replacement. So I'm going to walk you through it step by step. But remember, if you feel uncomfortable at any point in the replacement of your springs, I implore you to walk away and hire someone qualified. Your safety and well-being is more important than the hundred bucks you'll spend on the job.
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First, you need to figure out what kind of springs you're replacing. Extension springs work independently of each other and run parallel to the track, helping to raise and lower the door. When the door is down, the springs extend and when it's up, they contract. Extension springs wear more quickly than other springs because they work independently of each other, wobbling back and forth while they work. Extension springs are the most common and they also have a great effect on how the different parts of your door unit wear down.
To replace your extension springs you'll need some C-clamps (a couple of pairs of vice grips will do), a ladder, a socket wrench, an open-ended wrench and your new springs.
1) Lift your garage door completely open and engage the emergency release. This separates the opening Garage Door Repair Las Vegas arm from the lift system. But, for good measure, unplug your lifting device to make sure it can't engage while you're working. Attach the C-clamps to the track to hold your door in place.
2) Position your ladder under the track on one side of the garage door. Grab the lower part of the cable that runs over the pulley system on the end of the spring and pull it toward the front of the garage. This should give you some slack on the cable where it hooks up to the upper part of the track.
3) With your free hand, unfasten the hook and cable clip on the end of the cable from the upper track. Then slowly release the cable and allow it to rest on the safety cable. The safety cable is the cable that runs directly through the middle of the spring. Unfastened the end of the spring cable from the cable clips and pull the cable off the pulley and away from the spring entirely.
4) Look at both ends of the safety cable and determine which end would be easier for you do detach. This cable usually attaches to an eye bolt on the rear track hanger and to the front wall with a lag bolt which goes through a loop. Go ahead and disconnect whichever end you can and pull the cable completely out of the spring.
5) Next, you have to detach the extension spring from the rear track hanger. One end of the spring hooks over an eye bolt hook so you have to move the end of the spring away from the hook on the bolt. Get your socket wrench and fit it over the bolt securing the pulley to the U-bracket on the end of the spring. Loosen the nut on the other side with a wrench and detach the pulley from the spring. Good job, now they're off.
6) Getting the new ones back on actually isn't as hard. Start by placing the U-bracket on the end of the spring and positioning the pulley into the open end of the U-bracket. Line up the middle hole of the pulley with the holes on the end of the bracket.
7) Then insert the retaining bolt through one side of the bracket and the pulley. Thread a retaining nut on the end of the bolt and tighten it with a wrench and a socket wrench. Hook the opposite end of the spring on the eye bolt hook to the rear track bracket. Make sure the bolt head on the pulley is pointing toward the garage door track.
8) Now insert the safety cable through the spring and reconnect it to the either the rear track hanger or the front wall. It should be the place that you disconnected it.
9) Take the garage door cable and put the end between the front spring pulley and U-bracket from the top of the pulley. Slide the cable through the bottom of the pulley and toward the door. Make sure the cable that the cable is on top of the pulley on the front of the track, then thread the end of it the middle and one end hole on the cable clip. Then place the S-hook on the other end of the cable clip.
10) You need to stretch the spring slightly, so pull the end of the cable with one hand and it hold it while you insert the S-hook into the middle hole on the top front of the upper track. Remove the slack from the cable clip and spring by adjusting the cable in the cable clip. Once there's no slack, tie off the cable in the clip to hold it snug. To tie off the cable, insert the end through a hole and loop it through the next. Then loop it back around through the first hole and pull it tight.
That's it! You've negotiated the first extension spring replacement. Just follow the same steps on the other side of your garage door. You should always replace both springs at the same time to decrease the chance of your door going out of balance and to reduce the chance of spring breakage. Before you kick everything back into gear, do a balance check while you've still got your door disengaged. Once you're completely done, remove the C-clamps from your garage door tracks, plug your lift system back in and press the wall clicker to reengage the opener arm to the lift system.