<VV> safety wake up

[FrankCB]

Dennis,
     Good warning!  I can add that you can also buy these reinforcing cables separately (by themselves) without buying the springs for those of us who are more "frugally-minded".  Try Home Depot or Lowes or similar stores in your area.  The springs are under tension when the door is CLOSED so just bring the doors up to OPEN position.  Some small adjustment of the door position may be necessary to remove ALL tension from the springs when you add the cables.
     Don't let this matter go unless you want to see just what damage these springs can inflict on your Corvair, or, even worse, on YOU!
     Frank Burkhard

In a message dated 10/13/08 21:59:05 Eastern Daylight Time, ddpleau at msn.com writes:
I went to open my folks garage this afternoon and heard a big bang and the door got really heavy.  One of the springs broke.  It didn't hit anybody, but did leave a big dent in an antique carpenters tool box that belonged to my great uncle.  Garage door springs have a lot of energy and the old ones don't have a a cable through them to contain them when they break.  We found a crack in the other spring.  My folks bought the house new in 52, so they have had a lot of cycles on them.  Tonight they have two new springs.  I was opening from the outside, so I was some what protected, being on the inside would have been a lot more exciting.  If you have springs old enough to not have arresting cable through them, you may want to replace them. 

Dennis