<div dir="auto">Following up on this in case someone else searches this, or when I need to do again in ten years and have forgotten:<div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">The torsion spring is both every bit as worthy of respect as I thought, but also entirely user-serviceable. </div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">The delineation for this job shouldn't be, "do I know how to do this already/have I already done this?" but rather, "do I have the right tools and a healthy respect for the spring(s)?"</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">The correct tools in this instance are two forged spring 'lever-ers' that fit into the springs' sockets and are knurled for grip.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Use those, stand off to the side, and follow the procedure you guys outlined for me above. While there's plenty-enough torque to break a bone (or depress a skull fracture) if they get moving, there's much less than I expected--maybe less than 20 pounds.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Having said all that, I'd still pay someone to do this, and it has less to do with the spring than the panels, rods, and tracks. The panels on a 16-foot door are awkward, the rod the spring sits on is as well, and adjusting the tracks to be quiet, etc. is more art than science. It's probably much easier on an eight-foot door, but those tracks will still be fussy. With two people, or one person that does this for a living, it's maybe an hour and a half. By yourself, and you do one every fifteen years? Plan on a reasonably-frustrating afternoon and a 16-foot door and its accoutrements are then a pain in the ass to haul off, even in a Super Duty pickup. Add the spring to that and just cut a check and do something more fun, or enjoy watching the professional take care of it for you. </div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">So this and an alternator in a 2003 VW TDI Beetle are worth paying someone else to do. This because it's <span class="money">$395</span> (if you can get them out to the house) and that's easily winning the cost/benefit hurdle and the Beetle because the alternative is a tenuous hold on sanity or a drinking problem when you're done. </div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">Scott</div></div><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Oct 17, 2019, 11:49 AM Robert Nogueirao via Shop-talk <<a href="mailto:shop-talk@autox.team.net">shop-talk@autox.team.net</a>> wrote:<br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="auto">I would add, if you lock the spring clamp a few lbs of weight to the cable to keep I tight on the drum. If it is totally loose it difficult to get it to wind up on the drum correctly.<br><br><div dir="ltr">Bob Nogueira </div><div dir="ltr"><br><blockquote type="cite">On Oct 17, 2019, at 7:15 AM, DAVID MASSEY via Shop-talk <<a href="mailto:shop-talk@autox.team.net" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">shop-talk@autox.team.net</a>> wrote:<br><br></blockquote></div><blockquote type="cite"><div dir="ltr"><div><font size="3">Clever idea. Just take the tension off of the cables and have at it. But if it is an insulated door that is replacing an uninsulated door it will likely weigh more and the tension may need to be adjusted but one can cross that bridge when he comes to it.</font><br>
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