This is not related to upholstery directly, other than the fact that I am an upholsterer so anything that I do is related to upholstery indirectly.
Many folks on this forum are Do It Yourself folks, and often times that means DIY as much for the fun of it as to save a few bucks. Many of us just love finding out how things work.
I replaced the torsion spring on my garage door. This is the big spring that is over the door, not the tension springs that run across the ceiling on the sides of the door.
Here's a web site that was very helpful to me. I have no idea why this guy took all the time and trouble to put this together, but I am very grateful that he did.
http://www.truetex.com/garage.htm
gene
Whats cool about this site is you learn something new every day. Whether its tricks of the trade, business, or something totally unrelated. I always thought it would be great to have a site like this for automotive repair. Lord knows I could use some help in that department.
I nearly got killed by one once. After it let go and threw the bar at me, I got off the floor ( from falling off a ladder trying to duck the flying cheater bar ), I went into the house and called a garage door company. It is fairly straight forward but they can be extremely dangerous.
The RV awnings have the same exact system - a torsion bar inside the awning tube ) which is why I do not do awning replacements. My son had a torsion spring let go inside his awning tube and it blew right out the side of it.
I will have to go check this site out Gene. Thanks.
Mojo
To funny! The guy has way to much time on his hands....but is a Phd so that kind of explains it. LOL
So I have spent the last 16 years as Product Development Engineering Manager for one of the large overhead door manufacturers. I resigned last week and my last day is a week from today. I'm looking forward to my new life working in my own shop making seats and doing my own thing.
When replacing torsion springs or having them replaced ask for 100,000 cycle springs. Standard springs will typically last 10,000 cycle if sized correctly for the door. The increased cost is pretty small considering the 10x extra life you get out of them. Most door dealers/installers will not tell people about this, because spring replacment is good repeat service work.
Loren