How To Replace Garage Door Springs - Torquemaster Plus, Wayne Dalton

hey everybody so the other day I came home from work and pushed the button on my garage door opener in my car and my garage door opened and then stopped about 18 or so inches after it started and I thought that's a little strange there's something wrong with my garage door turns out yeah there's something wrong the springs that provide some extra assistance to try and balance out the door so that the motor up above me doesn't have to work so hard to actually open the door both of those Springs had actually broke in and so in this video I'm going to walk you through the replacement process for my broken garage door springs now before I even get started there are a couple of things I need to mention first off this video is going to be very specific I'm going to be covering the exact instructions for my specific garage door and there are a gazillion different kinds of garage doors so if you have a Wayne Dalton Garage Door that uses the torque master plus spring set and it's a double bay so you have a spring at that end and at this end this will be the video you want to watch if you need to learn how to replace your spring set if you have literally any other door made by any other manufacturer or even a different style made by Wayne Dalton the things I'm going to show you here will probably not match up in fact if you have one of those Springs that's exposed that you can see just kind of coiled up at the top of your garage door right in the center I would not recommend that you try and replace that yourself I've heard pretty terrible stories of people hurting themselves trying to replace those Springs they're substantially more dangerous than this spring set that I'm going to show you today so you've been warned if this is the exact kind of door that you've got this is the video for you also I want to point out I have no affiliation at all with Wayne Dalton or with the website where I ordered the Springs these are merely resources that I found to be helpful when I decided I was going to repair these myself and I wanted to pass that along to you all right that's enough yammering and disclaiming for me let's go ahead and get started so these are my replacement Springs and I ordered them from a company online I'll leave a link to them down in the description below and they came really fast I was really happy with how quickly they shipped them and they also included a nice printed set of instructions that we're gonna be following which was a nice touch as well now do be a little bit careful these are coiled up and under some tensions so when you pull them out of the box they will try and whip and spring around on you so just use a little bit of caution there now the set of instructions that came with these Springs are actually really good they start with the nice set of all of the tools that are going to be required and then all of the steps are laid out in a nice logical pattern with really good detailed illustrations I was really glad to see that and this matches perfectly what I have actually installed in here all too often you get instructions and they don't match what you're actually working on it's really frustrating but these instructions are really good so I will leave a link to these as well down in the video description you can download them from the website of the company that I ordered these Springs from and they also include them in the package as I mentioned before alright I'm going to gather up some tools and we'll we'll get started okay here we are up at the top of my garage door this is the spring itself and the first thing I think I want to cover is how I determined that the spring was broken in the first place it's a real simple test if there's anything still working in these you can't just reach up and spin them around like this ideally there's going to be a spring at both ends and this is a solid tube that if there's any tension on either spring it should not be allowed to just spin freely but as you can see this cable that is going to run down to the bottom of the door is completely just loose and it's this way at both ends and I could just freely spin the rod so the springs that are inside here have both broken now if your door doesn't have this problem if only one of your springs is broken then you're still going to have one spring under tension and there are instructions in the printed instructions that describe how to relieve that tension safely so that you can then remove your entire spring assembly but since mine is already broken there's no tension to relieve and we can just proceed right on to removing it okay the first of all we need to remove is this one right here the bottom of this bracket take that out next we need to pull this bolt out right here and then we do the same thing on the other side then there's two bolts on this bracket in the center one right at the bottom and one right at the top and next we need to remove this arm because this spring assembly has to come completely off the wall past it the easiest way to do that is to just remove this little pin up here at the top it's just held on with a little spring pull that down and then that will give us enough clearance to pull this out okay with this lag screw removed and this bolt did not remove the next thing to do is just remove this bracket and it should just come right off be more careful than I was don't drop all the parts this is the part that fell on the ground it's just the locking mechanism for when you're winding it and we'll just put it back in there when it's time but for now we can just set these aside and go remove the same bracket on the other side okay the last thing before we can remove the whole assembly is this wire has got to be threaded out so it's not going to get caught on your door so detach it from a little post that's at the bottom of the door feed the whole thing up so that it's free and coming out into the same place where you're going about to pull down your assembly okay for this next part it's best if you have somebody who can come and give you a hand because we're gonna need to pull down that entire assembly and it's pretty unwieldy to do as one person if you do have to do this by yourself the easiest way to do it is to come to the center on a ladder and to pull it off with your hands fairly wide so that you can try and counterbalance because one side will be a little heavier than the other that's why it's best if you have a helper that can come and support one end while you do the other and that's how I'm gonna do it one other quick tip I've got a couple of sawhorses set out right here so that when we pull it down we can set it straight down on the sawhorses to be able to remove the springs and put in the new ones if you don't have some saw horses you can just put it on the ground ready let's do it alright to remove this assembly all you need to do is lift it straight up and out of its brackets [Music] the next part to remove is this winder for that cable and that just slides right off the end and once that's out the spring that is old and broken just slides right out like that and we can see right where it broke now with the first half of that broken spring removed the next thing we need to pull out is this little sleeve that's inside here it's a little plastic sleeve we'll just feed it out by hand like this alright with the first broken half of that spring removed and the sleeve pulled out next we're going to use gravity to pull out the rest of the broken spring now be aware on these big long ones that are for the double bay doors the spring from the other side might also try and slide completely down out this end so I recommend you hang on to the end of the other spring while you do this and don't be surprised if you see two broken halves the one from this side and the one from that side come out when you do this next part we'll just tip this up and give it a little shake [Music] all right these are the two broken pieces of string one from this side and one that came all the way down the tube from the other side and with these out now we could just do the same procedure pull off the sleeve and pull out the spring on the other end all right we're ready to install the new springs into the tube but before we do so there's something I want to point out that was not covered in the instructions very well you see these sleeves that the springs slide into they have to be reinstalled in that tube as well but the springs that I received are a different length than the originals that were in the tube now the instructions do say that the springs will change from time to time and you may receive something that's a different length but what they don't say is what to do with the sleeve when it doesn't fit so I just cut these sleeves down you can see this one I've already cut here but this sleeve this is for the other side of the door you can see this is not going to slide over that end and that's by design they're not supposed to but this end is supposed to have that turning mechanism completely come out of the sleeve so all I'm gonna do is since you can kind of see through these I'm going to push that spring all the way in and then I'll just use a magic marker here to mark about where the metal of the spring ends and then I'll use a razor blade to cut this sleeve down to size okay with that sleeves shortened up now the end of the spring comes out about the right amount so we can go ahead and get this reinstalled okay to reassemble these light you need to do is line up this teardrop shape at the end and then you should be able to slide the spring and the sleeve right back in just about like that now one thing to point out here and to be very careful that you don't mix up the red spring has to go on the left-hand side of the door and that's the left-hand side when you're standing in the garage looking out the grey one goes on the right-hand side the instructions are real specific about that don't mix them up so this is my left-hand side and now we'll do the right-hand side one last tip here is to use a little bit of white lithium grease to lubricate these bearings right before you put them back on just shoot them with a little bit of white lithium and then give them a little spin to work it in and once they've been lubricated this also slides right over the end of this bar again making sure you line up the teardrop shape now this little gear part needs to come out this hole so be careful as you do this to make sure that you don't push that spring too far into the pipe alright that end is finished let's go put the sleeve on to the other end [Music] now reassembly is the opposite of disassembly and again it's very helpful if you can have an assistant to help you with the other end if not you want to lift it up from the center so that you can try and balance both ends and get it into the hooks we'll show you details of exactly how to hook it in in just a minute you ready [Music] so when you drop this on make sure that the little slot on this gear goes right down and sits into this bracket properly okay the next is to take this wire that the door is gonna be supported by and feed it down along the side of the track and it goes all the way down to the bottom of the door and the goal here is just to make sure that it doesn't get stuck on any of the rollers or tied up on any of the mechanism so that the door will be able to go up and down smoothly without catching on anything because this wire is actually going to have all the tension from the spring and fold the way to the door let go like that [Music] now down at the very bottom of the door is this little stud and this is where you're gonna hook the end of this wire on to and there'll be a little bit of extra slack in it for now because we haven't started tensioning the strings but you want to hook that on first otherwise you won't ever be able to reach it down in and put it on there so make sure that the travel from this point all the way up the side of the door is completely clear for this cable so that it's not caught or stuck on anything [Music] so if you have a little bit of a hard time hooking it on to this bottom part you may need to use a flathead screwdriver or something similar to help hook it on to the end of that post found at the bottom of the door there we go that's hooked on now and then just make sure that the path of this table is completely unobstructed all the way up the door straight up to the spring so these teeth in this bracket need to match these little teeth on the red end to this guy right here so we're gonna slide that on and then we need to wiggle and jiggle a little bit until that fits over the end just like that [Music] the next thing we're going to do is take up the slack in this wire and the way that this is done is the wire is going to spool up onto this so with your hand you should be able to just turn this and it will start to actually put a little bit of tension on those Springs so you ever want to pull it just until that wire starts to have a little bit of tension on it and then you can use this locking mechanism right here to lock that in place so that the tension that you've put on won't get removed and before we run to the other side it's a good idea now that this cable has been pulled a little bit tighter just to make sure that the path that it travels down is completely unobstructed and it comes all the way down to the bottom of the door and is still connected to that post we are nice and clear so we're good to go and assemble the bracketry on the other side okay just like on the other side you want to make sure that this gear is set properly down into that groove just want to seat it properly so we're ready to go for the next step and the next thing we want to do is to reinstall this bracket and again just like on the other side we've gotta line up the teeth of the spring with the teeth inside this bracket and there we go this takes a little finagling okay and then we're gonna shoot this lag screw in [Music] and drop our sockets and then finally to finish this bracket it's just this bottom bolt and again you want to make sure that there's clearance for this cable you think it is okay [Music] we will lock it in place to make sure it doesn't go in then we have to reinstall this Center bracket just put the lag screws back in oh you kick the camera yeah [Music] now that Center bracket is done it's time to reattach to this with that pin that we removed before okay now we're ready to tension our Springs alright so I made a little mistake and I wanted to point out exactly what I did wrong so that if you happen to run across the same problem you know what the issue is in a minute here you're gonna see me start to tension these Springs by spinning the the red and the gray ends of the springs that we've installed the problem is when you start to tension them it's supposed to use these teeth inside on this little gear to hold that tension but you may recall when I pull this thing out that little tooth gear fell out of this assembly and I put it back in backwards and as a result it is not holding tension in the way that it's supposed to so pay attention when you're putting that back together if your little gear comes flying out like minded that the teeth need to point towards the front meaning into the garage not towards the outside or the front of the house so I'm going to pull this apart put that gear back in there the other direction and then we can continue okay that gear has been spun around and reinstalled you can see the direction those teeth are pointing now that's the way that it's supposed to be pointing so that it clicks properly as you start to tension the gear all right we're finally to the part where we're gonna start to put some tension on these Springs that are behind me but before we do that you need to make sure that when you're doing your door you know the correct amount of tension to put on in the instructions there's a handy table that tells you how many turns of tension that you're gonna add to the springs and it's done based on the height of your door the width of the door and the weight of the door those are all measurements that you're going to need when you order your Springs in the first place and in my case those measurements were all actually written on the top of the tube on a yellow label so it was really easy for me to find this door happens to be 8 feet tall 16 feet wide and weighs 144 pounds or needs 144 pound counterbalance spring using the table to send the instructions this tells me I need to turn both Springs at either end 18 full revolutions to put them to the correct tension and again your door may have a different number of revolutions I just want to point that out if your door is smaller or larger you'll have a different number of turns all right now let me show you how you can tell how many turns you've actually added as you put them in so in order to see the number of revolutions that I've done I've put a little mark right here on the outside with a little permanent marker and I should be able to see that when the spring is spinning around but in case I don't I've also marked the bottom of this tooth that's inside this mechanism with a black mark so that as this spins around I can count the number of times either of those marks comes around and as I mentioned in my case I need 18 rotations to get it to the correct tension so we'll just use a socket wrench here we will start rotating that's one two three all right I put ten revolutions on this first one like I said on each 18 total but before I put all 18 into this one I'm gonna go put 10 into the other side and then just double check to make sure that the wires that are supporting the bottom of the door are going where they're supposed to nothing's binding and everything looks like it's going to tighten up properly [Music] okay I finished 18 revolutions on that side everything's lined up free and clear I'm going to put the other 8 revolutions into the other side all right with 18 revolutions on both Springs again that's for my door yours may have a different number of revolutions we should be able to now detach the door trolley from the opener track and manually lift open the door and it should come up with hardly any pressure at all now quick little word of warning if you've over wound your Springs when you do this your door will try and just shoot straight up so you'll want to have a pretty firm grip on it and some people recommend that you put a vise grips on the track a few inches above the rollers so that if it tries to roll up it will hit the vise grip and stop [Music] well it's pulling itself up see okay so this is pulling just a little bit harder than I'm real happy with so I'm gonna go ahead and relieve a little bit of the tension by taking out one revolution on both sides and then we'll try it again what you're aiming for here is being able to lift the door open about a third of the way and it should stay right where you set it then lift it up about two-thirds of the way and again it should stay right where you said it - having a tendency to want to keep going up a little bit so we'll take a little tension out of the springs alright one more quick little caveat word of warning here relieving the tension on these Springs is about the only kind of dangerous part of this whole operation you see what you have to do is put your ratchet back on to that tightening mechanism and take up the tension yourself so it's no longer being held back by the lockout mechanism that's in there then you need to pull out what's called the pall so that it is no longer engaged in those teeth and let the ratchet spin in your hand while you hold all of the tension of that spring three or four teeth and then you put the pull back in move your ratchet and repeat you do that several times to make one full revolution this is a little bit dangerous be prepared to hold all the weight of that spring so it doesn't slam your hand back against the wall and mess up your knuckles and there's good instructions on how to do this in the printed instructions that came with my spring and on the ones that I'm in a link in the description below it's just be careful okay I've removed one full revolution off both Springs let's see how the door behaves now we'll bring it up about a third of the way and it stays right where I put it we'll bring it up 2/3 of the way and it stays right where I stopped it and if we bring it up all the way it stays open perfectly this is one great way to determine whether or not you've got the tension set properly on your Springs all right now I'm ready to reattach it to the garage door opener and test that as well all right my son's gonna push the button on the opener and let's see what it does I'm listening for any abnormal sounds everything sounds perfect and I'm watching to make sure that the door is moving smoothly and evenly it open to the proper amount go ahead and close it again for us [Applause] I think we're all set the last thing to check is at the crack at the bottom of both sides of the door you want to make sure your door is not set off a little bit on one side or the other you want that crack at the bottom to be perfectly even if you find that it's up or down on one side or the other then you'll need to adjust the length of that cable that's used to hang the door there's instructions for how to do that in the printed instructions that came with the springs as well all right I have to be pretty honest with you I was a little bit intimidated by this project I was concerned because I've heard horror stories about people who have tried to replace their own Springs and gotten really seriously injured but the safety mechanisms that are intrinsic to the design of these Springs made it a little bit less intimidating for me and I decided to go ahead and try and do this one myself and I'm really glad I did I learned a lot doing this project and I hope that some of what I ran across and learned I've been able to pass on to you if you've enjoyed this video I'd appreciate it if you hit me with a little thumbs up down below and if you want to see more videos like this of course you can think about subscribing but there's no pressure there and as always thank you very much for watching this is not a generic how do I replace my garage door springs video and I probably will never produce one of those because frankly it's a zip yeah I don't play with these they're not really toys

Channel: AmplifyDIY

Views: 194,968

Keywords: torquemaster plus, wayne dalton torquemaster spring replacement, torquemaster +, torquemaster plus spring replacement, wayne dalton spring replacement, wayne dalton spring, torque master plus, torque master +, wayne dalton broken, wayne dalton, wayne dalton garage door problems, replace garage door spring, garage door spring, broken garage door spring, garage door won't open, how to fix broken garage door spring, how to replace garage door spring, tutorial, step by step, howto

Id: oedkAkNUJTM

Length: 25min 11sec (1511 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 27 2020