Hey, DIY Nation! It's Jeff with HomeRepairTutor. And I'm going to show you how to replace a
garage door extensions spring. Now an extension spring looks like this. And you can bend it
like so. Pretend like you're He-Man or She-Ra. And you know your extension spring is going
bad when your garage door just doesn't behave like it used to or your spring looks like
this. And all the coils are extended and irregular. So you want to replace the spring because
it's dangerous if it pops. It's under tremendous tension. And if it breaks, and it's not on
a safety cable, it could literally kill somebody and do a lot of harm to your home in addition
to that. So this is a project you can do yourself. There are a lot of safety precautions, but
don't be worried about that. We'll address them in this tutorial. And before you know
it, your garage door will be working like it's brand new. So let's get started!
Here are all the tools that you're going to need. You're going to need two C-clamps, some
lineman's pliers, a crescent wrench and a socket wrench, or a combination of these three
wrenches right here. In my case, I needed a ½" wrench but I couldn't find my other
one. So I needed to use either one of these. And then some duct tape.
On top of all those tools, you're going to need a step stool and a 6' or 8' stepladder
like this yellow-and-blue one here. Open your garage door then place a stepladder
directly underneath it because we're going to rest the garage door on top of the stepladder.
Then you want to unplug the garage door opener if you have one primarily because you don't
want any surprises if somebody comes home and they hit the garage door to open or close
while you're working on it. Bad news! Pull down on the garage door's manual safety
release. Then pull down on the garage door to make sure that it will land on top of the
ladder. This is a nice safety precaution. At this point, you can slide one of your C-clamps
on both the left and the right side of the track so that they rest directly underneath
the last roller that's in the track. Make sure that that C-clamp is tight 'cause these
garage doors are heavy. With all the safety precautions in place—the
ladder, the C-clamps, the garage door opener unplugged—now we can remove the old spring.
The extension spring is only attached to a few different things. Right here you have
a pulley. So the spring is attached to the pulley. We're going to have to remove that
pulley. And then there's a safety cable that runs inside the spring right here. And that
safety cable is attached to a bracket that comes down off your ceiling. So you have to
remove that safety cable in order to remove the spring from this eye bolt right here.
I placed some blue tape on this rail here, and made a mark on it with a Sharpie marker,
to indicate the general location of the bolt that holds the pulley together. And I did
that just so I have a reference point for when I put the pulley back together on the
new spring. The next step is just to loosen this bolt
on the pulley. So using the crescent wrench, or whatever wrench you have, and a socket
wrench you can easily do that. So just turn the bolt counter-clockwise to loosen it. Once
you get it to the point whereby you can loosen it the rest of way with your hand, do so.
What you can do is to make sure that the pulley retains its orientation is take it like this
and put a piece of duct tape around it so that it holds onto the steel cable. That way
it won't get distorted and disoriented. You'll know which way to pull it back up and attach
it onto that clamp that holds onto the extension spring. But this is my way of just rigging
it up so that I can keep track of how it's supposed to be oriented.
So here's the safety cable that runs through your extension spring. At this point, I highly
recommend taking a picture of how it's oriented so that when you untie it, you know how to
put it back together when you run it through the new extension spring.
Here's a hot tip: these safety cables, these steel safety cables, always become unwound.
So what you want to do to help yourself out is take a piece of duct tape. Like I said,
it doesn't have to be moustache duct tape. But that's cool. And just take the duct tape
and wrap it around the ends of the safety cable. This will keep it in one piece and
allow you to work with it. Now you can take this clamp off the end of
the spring. Now the spring is just hanging from that eye bolt. And now you can remove
the spring from the eye bolt. Take a look at this old spring. Oh, my gosh!
It's in terrible shape compared to the new one. So here's the other tip: see how the
old spring is red spray paint on the end of it? Well that's how you match, that's how
you figure out which spring to get when you get to the store. And they're rated based
on a few different things. But the primary way that you choose an old spring is based
on this color that's painted on the end. So match the red with the red and you're good
to go. Place the safety cable clamp back onto the
end of the spring. And then thread that safety cable through the extension spring so that
it comes out the other side. So using the picture that you took of the
safety cable, orient the cable the way that it was before you took the spring off the
eye bolt. And then use your lineman's pliers to really pull down and secure the cable so
that it's very taut. As taut as you can get it.
If you need some slack in order to get the pulley back in place, you may have to remove
this S-hook that attaches the steel cable to this bracket on your garage door.
Now what you can do is pull the pulley wheel with the cable on top of it. Pinch the cable
together to hold the pulley wheel in place. And then slide the bolt through the clip here.
And you can bolt it together with the nut. Take your nut, slip it onto the other side.
Just hand-tighten it first. All right, now what you can do is tighten
up that nut and bolt. All right. That's really good. It's nice and tight.
I've one big tip for you: make sure that the cable that goes over the top of this pulley
wheel is to the right of the safety cable which is right here. Otherwise, the cables
are going to get intertwined and that's dangerous. So just keep an eye on that and make sure
that the cables are not comingled with each other. And that this cable that goes over
the top of the pulley is free to move. Ugh! I'll tell you what. Things like this
happen all the time during DIY. Let me show you something.
So this steel cable here is broken. The strands that make it up, there are at least 2 or 3
that have torn apart. And that means that this cable needs to be replaced. So I wanted
to show you this because whenever you're replacing garage door parts, it's a great idea to inspect
the safety cables or steel cables that are pulling up the door.
Reattach the S-hook to this 3-hole clip. Take it and slide it into the bracket on your garage
door. Just make sure that the cable that should
be on the pulley is in fact on the pulley and then it runs over the top of it and underneath
of it. The cable should be fairly taut, have some
tension in it. If it doesn't, then you can adjust that S-clip which is attached to the
garage door bracket. Any loose steel cables like this one here
should be attached to the garage door bracket or wound together so that they don't interfere
with the safety cable or the pulley cable. Remove the C-clamps. Reengage your garage
door. Take your ladder out from under the door. And plug your garage door opener in.
And while I'm very confident in the work that I do, I do recommend when you close the door
to stand to the opposite side or stand inside the house or maybe do it from your car just
to make sure that you did it the right way. All right, my friends. That's it. That's how
you replace a garage door extension spring. Not a torsion spring but an extension spring
that looks just like this. Well hopefully your spring doesn't look this bad. But if
it does, it totally needs replaced. So if you have any questions whatsoever, please
ask me in the comments section. Or if you have your own tips, add that to the comments
section as well. Remember, if you're new to my videos or HomeRepairTutor,
you can always sign up for my email newsletter. It comes up every single Friday. And I really
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feeling overwhelmed with stuff around your house. Plus you'll save money in the process.
So go over to HomeRepairTutor. Sign up for the newsletter. I think that you'll like it.
Until the next video, I hope you have a great day, and I'll talk to you soon. Take care!
[Outtakes] All right, my friends. That's it. That's how
you replace a garage door extension sp... spr... [chuckles] a spring that looks like
this! That you can just manipulate and turn it into the biggest rubber band weapon in
the world. Hey, everyone. It's Jeff again. And I wanted
to send a heartfelt thanks to my buddy, JB, who's just fantastic. He's one of my biggest
supporters; the nicest guy. Even though he lives from Baltimore and he is a Ravens fan
and I'm a Steelers fan, we're still good buddies. And I wanted to tell you if you could, go
over to JB's website, BuildingMoxie.com. Here it is right here. BuildingMoxie.com. He's
got a new YouTube channel that he's building up, and I think that you're really going to
enjoy his videos. So check out JB's website. JB, I love you,
man. I hope you're having a great day. And everybody have a wonderful week. I'll see
you soon.