Garage door spring safety cables

[pwdcougar]

Wondered how many guys are trusting the safety cables that run through overhead garage door springs. My doors are old heavy wooden ones with pretty heavy duty springs. One of the springs let go the other day and tore apart the safety cable I got from either Home Depot or Lowes. This was a pretty good diameter steel cable too. The cable just snapped in half!

Luckily it didn't do any damage to my car.

I'm going to get 3/16 or 1/4 inch cable and re do them.

Paul

[truckdude239]

i had the coil spring on my shop doors break at work total pain in the butt as the door take 3-4 people to lift when teh springs quit. they saound likea bomb going off but thankfuly they have a steel rod though tehm

[racecougar]

Originally Posted by truckdude239

i had the coil spring on my shop doors break at work total pain in the butt as the door take 3-4 people to lift when teh springs quit. they saound likea bomb going off but thankfuly they have a steel rod though tehm

They certainly do. I had one let go last year...I think my ears are still ringing.

[pwdcougar]

A steel rod welded at each end would be a heck of a lot safer than the cable. I'll probably go with 1/4 inch cable though. When I was a kid one went out and it put a hole in the sheet rock and a huge dent in the 2 X 4 stud underneath it. If it had hit someone it would have killed them!

Paul

[racecougar]

Originally Posted by pwdcougar

A steel rod welded at each end would be a heck of a lot safer than the cable. I'll probably go with 1/4 inch cable though,

Well yeah, a steel rod won't work too well with the extension type door springs. The spring pictured above is a torsion type door spring.

[pwdcougar]

I'm pretty sure it could be rigged up with steel rod running through the spring and welded directly to the door track. It would only be 1/4" diameter and it may have a bend or two to clear the pulley on the end of the spring. It would be a bi*ch to change the spring though.

Paul

[Malo83]

Neighbors spring broke recently, when the garage door tech came over to replace it he noted that the spring had never been lubed??? he said to spray the springs occasionally to keep them lubricated, extends the life of the spring, spray mine with WD40 every couple of months

[pwdcougar]

Really??? On the long stretchy springs? Guess I'll have to try that!

Paul

[racecougar]

No, it's the torsion type springs that should be lubricated.

[ERASER5]

Originally Posted by racecougar

Well yeah, a steel rod won't work too well with the extension type door springs. The spring pictured above is a torsion type door spring.

Yep. It's no-go on a solid rod. The extension springs move around quite alot. Replacing those springs is a real enjoyable job too.

[MadManAndrew]

Originally Posted by truckdude239

i had the coil spring on my shop doors break at work total pain in the butt as the door take 3-4 people to lift when teh springs quit. they saound likea bomb going off but thankfuly they have a steel rod though tehm

We recently had that happen to our overhead garage door. It did sound absolutely horrendous. What was odd was that the door was is only like five or six years old. The tech said a similar thing to what was said above about the springs and the hinges, etc never having been lubricated. He put bigger springs on and lubed everything and the damn door is almost silent now besides the faint little hum of the opener motor. Before you could hear it opening from the opposite side of the house.

[_Ogre]

the cable may have snapped but it absorbed a lot of the spring energy before it snapped

note to self: install cables that are laying on the shelf (for 5 yrs)