Thank God for Richard J. Kinch

Richard Kinch wrote this page at a time when the Internet was just becoming a common-use item. He had the same problem I have: a broken garage door torsion spring.



I read his write-up a few years ago and was able to adjust the springs on my door, which was the required work at the time. With the information there, I made my own winding bars and was successful in adjusting my door's springs. A few years later (this morning) my children went to see if their Bibles were in the car, and #1 shut the garage access door as she went out. Immediately, all three were traumatized for life by the very loud snapping of the right-side torsion spring over the garage door. I am planning to sue the manufacturer. startled to hear the noise of a breaking torsion spring.

I thought they must have dumped something over and spilled a pile of my precious junk stuff, but when I went out to see what the ruckus was, they directed my attention to the freshly broken spring. Great. I hefted the door open manually (welcome to the GUN SHOW!!!) and re-latched the door shut after we drove the car out. Now I need a spring.

This was a teachable moment for #1 and #2. I repeated our house rule that YOU NEVER GO UNDER THE DOOR WHILE IT IS OPENING OR CLOSING or it will SQUASH YOU if the spring breaks. When the door is closed, the spring is at maximum tension. My spring was probably failing for quite a while, and the vibration from #1 closing the door was enough to finally make it snap.

P.S. there is a LOT of information on the web about doing this work these days. It was harder to find when I first looked it up and nearly impossible to find just eight short years ago. Many thanks to Mr. Kinch for making his web page. Dan Musick of DDM Garage Doors has a page with similar instructions, a few extra pointers, and way more photographs, for the less technically-inclined. Reat at LEAST both of these pages before you start thinking about changing your own garage door springs.