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How I replaced deadly garage door torsion springs (2002)

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Re: How I replaced deadly garage door torsion springs (2002)

#91

Post by jollyllama »

derekp7 wrote: post #66
TheGRS wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its widely known as one of the most dangerous DIYs you can do. I think typically people working on them will get pushed off their ladder suddenly from the tension in the spring releasing.

Happened in my family a number of years ago. The instructions said to crank the spring 7 1/4 turns. So it was really make a 1/4 turn, repeat 7 times. Not 7 full turns plus 1/4 additional. After pulling the vice grips off, the door shot up with such force that it knocked the ladder over, causing a broken collar bone in the process.

I tried and failed to repair before, but didn't get injured. I had to take great care with the vice grips and other implements I was using; my intuition was they could become missiles.

Re: How I replaced deadly garage door torsion springs (2002)

#92

Post by sokoloff »

the__alchemist wrote: post #20
levocardia wrote: post #5

I had a teacher in high school who was blinded (I think only in one eye) trying to do this repair. You could not pay me enough money to do this repair. >This work is risky, but the risk is comparable to doing your own car repairs, or climbing on the roof of your house to clean your gutters. Notably, "unintentional fall" is the #1 cause of emergency department visits for adults [1], which is why I'd hire a professiona…

Thank you. I agree on all examples. Absolutely not worth the risk. Not even close. I wince thinking about when I changed my own oil in my 20s... Potentially throwing away so many good years, for so little gain. The car danger can be mitigated if the work is done under a professional lift.

I do my oil changes top-side now, using an air-powered Mityvac (MV7300; no affiliation).

That's the factory-recommended procedure for several brands now and works well on my Mercedes and Honda. I was skeptical at first, but did the extraction and then removed the drain plug and the oil I got from the bottom wouldn't have half-filled a shot glass, so that's good enough for me.

As long as the filter is accessible from the top or side, I don't see the need to jack up most wet-sump cars (which is almost all of them).

Re: How I replaced deadly garage door torsion springs (2002)

#93

Post by ToucanLoucan »

zdragnar wrote: post #58
linsomniac wrote: post #30

Nobody seems to mention keeping the springs lubed for longevity. What's the groups thinking on that? I keep a spray bottle of lube by the door and shoot it every few months, which is probably overkill, but it's so easy. Then just wipe off the excess and grime maybe yearly.

Might help with corrosion, too. My grandfather had a very old garage door and opener, and one day something gave and it blew apart. It sounded very much like a shotgun had been fired inside the garage. Fortunately, nobody was in or near the garage when it happened, but I'll remember it every time "garage door spring" comes up in conversation.

We had a corroded one that still functioned but I finally buckled under the RACKET the thing made every time the door opened and closed and got it replaced anyway.

Every single time you opened or closed it, it sounded like a goddamn car crash going on out front. Ugh.

Re: How I replaced deadly garage door torsion springs (2002)

#94

Post by sokoloff »

YeBanKo wrote: post #83
the__alchemist wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. I agree on all examples. Absolutely not worth the risk. Not even close. I wince thinking about when I changed my own oil in my 20s... Potentially throwing away so many good years, for so little gain. The car danger can be mitigated if the work is done under a professional lift.

> Potentially throwing away so many good years How much time did you spend changing oil?? It's a 20-30 min job once you have done it coupe of time and know the ropes. I sometimes do it myself not because I want to save few bucks, but because it's sometimes faster than going somewhere.

I read that as "I risked 50+ remaining years of my life (or serious life-changing injury) with low-probability" not "it took me so many wasted hours with probability 1.0"

Re: How I replaced deadly garage door torsion springs (2002)

#95

Post by dave78 »

rootusrootus wrote: post #90

I've had springs replaced in the past, and that's one of those jobs I'm perfectly willing to pay someone else to do. The cost is insignificant. I'll happily wire up my own 240V appliances, work underneath my properly supported car, etc. But garage door springs? Nah, go ahead, you do it, send me the bill.

The cost really is the key for me. We had one replaced a few months ago and it was a few hundred dollars and was done the same day. I usually prefer to DIY, but it would have taken me a while just to measure everything, round up the right spring and acquire it, get the correct rods and cut them to size, etc. I'm sure that would consume at least an afternoon for me and it would still cost something to acquire the parts. The savings just isn't worth it.

If the cost to have it done professionally was $3000, it might be a different story.

Re: How I replaced deadly garage door torsion springs (2002)

#97

Post by ToucanLoucan »

hvs wrote: post #54
crmd wrote: post #52

The author's intentionally verbose/non-linear storytelling technique, for example the two paragraph detour that describes his ladder and the ladder company's bankruptcy, and the 19 paragraph deep dive on garage door repair business marketing, makes it very hard for my brain to absorb the core information I was looking for (the procedure to replace the springs). I know I'm kind of missing the point/creative intent of…

This is basically what the "early Internet" looked like that people often write paeans to. Lots of pages written by people very dedicated to a weirdly specific thing while also peppering it with nonsequiturs and their crazy theory about who runs the "real" government. It was fine, but hardly the glorious wonderland often portrayed. (Not that the current Internet is without its flaws, but if I want to learn something…

> It was fine, but hardly the glorious wonderland often portrayed.

Probably down to personal taste, but I would happily take a thousand of these websites with strange, esoteric folk sharing knowledge in unconventional ways than another subreddit that's 70% non-sequiturs by volume, or a Stack Exchange thread that's just the same quesiton asked 400 times in broken english.

Re: How I replaced deadly garage door torsion springs (2002)

#98

Post by bumby »

linsomniac wrote: post #30

Nobody seems to mention keeping the springs lubed for longevity. What's the groups thinking on that? I keep a spray bottle of lube by the door and shoot it every few months, which is probably overkill, but it's so easy. Then just wipe off the excess and grime maybe yearly.

At least according to the article, the main failure mode is fatiguing, so I’m not sure lube would help with that, unless the corrosion is really bad. Most materials have a finite amount of cycles in them (although I’m a bit skeptical of the authors 7 year estimate…it seems low to me)

Re: How I replaced deadly garage door torsion springs (2002)

#100

Post by cnasc »

sokoloff wrote: post #92
the__alchemist wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you. I agree on all examples. Absolutely not worth the risk. Not even close. I wince thinking about when I changed my own oil in my 20s... Potentially throwing away so many good years, for so little gain. The car danger can be mitigated if the work is done under a professional lift.

I do my oil changes top-side now, using an air-powered Mityvac (MV7300; no affiliation). That's the factory-recommended procedure for several brands now and works well on my Mercedes and Honda. I was skeptical at first, but did the extraction and then removed the drain plug and the oil I got from the bottom wouldn't have half-filled a shot glass, so that's good enough for me. As long as the filter is accessible from…

Recently got one of these myself. Didn’t even get my hands dirty doing the change, wish I knew about fluid extractors years ago (though not all of my cars have had filters so easily accessible)
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