Garage-door spring reinforcement and repair kit

Abstract

The invention is a kit of parts to be retrofitted to a type of garage-door spring that functions in extension and may break near its retention hook, which may be an integral hook formed by bending of the spring material itself. The kit of this invention improves safety by reducing the chance of the spring-retention hooks' breaking. The kit has two major parts which are easily assembled together and attached to an existing spring without the use of tools. A disk-shaped centering clement contacts the spring coils at least at three positions on its rim, thereby distributing stress over a significantly larger area than the conventional integral retention hooks. The disk has an aperture, a notch, and a flat. A hook element fits through the notch and aperture, and a dogleg portion of the hook element extends beyond the disk's rim contacting the spring's end to help prevent the spring from turning. For reinforcing a normal garage door installation, four spring reinforcement and repair kits arc required (two for each spring). The kit is also used for repair of springs that have broken at or near their integral hooks, without requiring replacement of the entire spring. The safety of a garage-door spring installation is further improved by including in the garage-door spring reinforcement and repair kit an auxiliary spring of smaller coil diameter and substantially weaker spring constant than the garage-door spring itself. The auxiliary spring has a relaxed length shorter than the garage-door spring and an outer coil diameter small enough to fit entirely within the inner coil diameter of the garage-door spring. If the garage-door spring should break within the spring coil, the auxiliary spring retains the broken spring parts. The auxiliary spring is attached by integral hooks or by use of spring reinforcement and repair kits made small enough to fit within the inside diameter of the garage-door spring coil itself.