Thoughts needed on garage door torsion bar

[Hunduh]

Hi everyone, first post here. I spend a lot of time reading here and looking at people's garage pics for ideas to steal.


My garage door is a 16 x 7 two inch wide insulated door. I raised my roof and ordered high lift tracks so I could squeeze a 4 post lift in there. I need advice on what kind of steel I need for my garage door torsion bar. I am converting from extension springs to a torsion spring setup at about 12' high. I spoke to a few different steel shops in my area and what I have available in 17' x 1" OD is:


Hot rolled 1" OD bar

Or

Precision ground 1045 medium carbon steel.

Or l

If I wanted a cold rolled bar, I would have to have it ordered and wait a few days for it to come in.


Of the three choices, which is best? Why?

Price wise, the solid bar is going to cost the same as having two 8' hollow sections shipped to me. Thanks

 

[ford33]

Hot rolled 1" and 1045 carbon steel are both hot rolled steel. I don't see the reason for precision ground or cold rolled steel bar for a double wide garage door. Why spend the additional money if a basic round bar will suffice?

 

[BillK]

Hundah,

Don't know where you are located but I would go to a local garage door company and ask them to save you the hardware from the next door they replace. The one guy I know here locally usually has several sets of that stuff on his truck headed to the landfill.

 

[Hunduh]

The local garage door supplier here in Long Island, NY won't even talk to me or sell to me. They only deal with those "in the business". I ordered all my stuff except for the bar from DDM garage doors. I just have to source the bar myself.


I thought it had to be cold rolled.......... so a hot rolled bar will suffice? That should make it easier

 

[BillK]

The local garage door supplier here in Long Island, NY won't even talk to me or sell to me. They only deal with those "in the business".

You need to talk to an installer, not the wholesale supplier. The installers probably throw away what you need every day. Go to Lowes or Home Depot and ask them who does their installs for them.

 

[Hot Rod Grampa]

A small local door company recycles those tubes all the time. You may want to get to know those people. Converting the door to torsion is not hard but converting it to high lift may prove tricky. Did you weigh the door before you ordered the springs? The engineering on those is finicky.

 

[tarmy]

I went to steel supplier..40 bucks for a 18' 1" DM tube...works great.

 

[wssix99]

Of the three choices, which is best? Why?

Solid bars have a key milled into them for the torsion spring set screws. You really need this if you are going with a solid bar - so it's a specialty part that you can't replace with plain stock. (Unless you have the capability to mill bars.)

The local garage door supplier here in Long Island, NY won't even talk to me or sell to me.

There are lots of places on the internet that will sell to DIY-ers:
http://ddmgaragedoors.com/parts/
https://www.diy-garage-door-parts.com/for-sale/garage-door-springs
/torsion-springs/
... and many more - just search


If you don't want to pay for shipping, you can find someone on Long Island. You talk about the place like its a small dot in the ocean with a single palm tree. lol You have hundreds of suppliers within a 45 minute drive of you. (if you drive at the right time...) You may have to call around or tell them that you are a general contractor/house flipper and one of "your guys" is going to install the stuff, etc. (For some reason, people get hung up about the customer getting hurt, but if its "one of the guys" out in the field... they must know what they are doing.)

This all being said, the torsion springs are not easy and winding them can be very dangerous if done wrong. The sites above have some good instructions and you should also look at investing in some proper keyed winding bars!