Even in our calmest days, we can alway count on the garage door to act up. Suppose the garage door goes off the pulley and hangs at an angle. This means the garage door cable is broken and need to be fixed. If you are up to the challenging task, there are many steps to learn for knowing how to fix a garage door cable. First, you must identity the cable that needs be replaced. There are 3 types of cable on a garage door: torsion, extension spring and safety cable. Read on to learn how to replace a garage door cable.

Materials for Replacing Cable

– Stepladder

– Cable Set

– Winding Bars

– 3/8- inch wrench

– Vise Grips

Instructions

1. Close the garage door.

2. Use stepladder to unplug the power cord.

3. Put the stepladder under the torsion spring.

4. Insert a winding bar into the hole in the winding cone.

5. Loosen set screws on the winding cone with 3/8 inch wrench.

6. Carefully let the spring rotate until the bar is steadfast against the door and inside the winding cone. Have a firm grip on the bar until it against on the top of the door. If there is more than spring, repeat the same process.

7. Loosen set screws on the drum on each end of the shaft where the cable wraps around the wrench.

8. Rotate drums around the shaft until both cables can be removed safely.

9. On the bottom bracket, remove the cable.

10. Pull off loop on the cable from the bottom bracket pin.

11. Place loop end over the bottom bracket pin.

12. Feed the end of the cables with the metal stop button behind each of door roller stem, letting them hang over the roller.

13. Use the stepladder to get to the right-side drum.

14. Slide the drum against the inside door track.

15. Thread cable behind the shaft and over top of the drum.

16. Put metal stop portion into the notch on the drum.

17. Rotate drum clockwise to wrap cable to the highest groove on the drum.

18. Grab the top of drum with one hand and rotate clockwise to tighten cable.

19. Tighten drum set screws.

20.Clamp a pair of vice grips over shaft.

21. Attach cable to left drum.

22. Tighten set screws with wrench.

23. Under the winding cone of the torsion spring, use winding bar to rotate winding cone until bar is horizontal.

24. Tighten set screws on the winding cone wrench.

25. Release the winding bar and remove from the winding cone.

26. Repeat if there is more than one spring.

Remember to have another person with you when replacing cables. For these kinds of jobs, a professional is highly recommended due its high risk of serious injury. TalkLocal can connect you to the best garage door professionals in your area.