Garage Door Repair for Larkspur's 1971-Era Doors

Parts We Carry

Most garages in Larkspur went up around 1971, which puts the typical door squarely in the early steel sectional era - a shift away from the solid wood slab doors of the decade before. That means a 16-foot double or 9-foot single sectional door, usually unlined steel panels, running on torsion springs mounted on a shaft above the opening rather than the older side-mounted extension springs. We carry torsion springs sized for that door weight, the matching steel drums and cable, and the stamped-steel rollers those doors shipped with - not the sealed nylon rollers that came later. Hinges for these panels are a common wear part since the original steel is thinner than what's made now. We also stock the jackshaft and standard-lift torsion hardware that shows up on the double-wide garages common to houses built in that window, plus bottom brackets and weatherstrip track that fits the older 2-inch jamb depth rather than the wider trim used on newer builds. If your door is original, parts fit is the first question we answer before we talk price.

Can You Do This Yourself

A torsion spring holding a 16-foot steel door is wound under enough tension to break a wrist or worse if the winding bars slip - this isn't a weekend fix, and we'll say that to anyone who asks. Rollers, weatherstrip, and tightening loose hinge screws are reasonable DIY jobs on a door this age. Replacing a spring, a cable, or the torsion shaft itself is not, regardless of what a video makes it look like. The honest limit on our end: if the steel panels themselves are rusted through or the door has been painted shut at the seams, we're not going to fight that door back to life - at some point the labor to save a 1971 door costs more than a new one, and we'll tell you that instead of running the meter.

How We Fix It

We come from San Rafael, 3 miles up the road, so there's no local branch or dedicated truck sitting in Larkspur - every call starts with that short drive. Once we're at the door, the sequence is the same regardless of the fault: check the springs for correct wind and wire gauge against the door weight, check the track alignment since steel sectional doors from this era are more prone to track drift than newer aluminum-track doors, then check the opener's force settings if one's been added since the door went in. Mild temperate weather here means we're not dealing with frozen lift cables or ice-locked tracks, so most of what we see is wear from age and use, not climate damage. We replace what's worn, not what's merely old, and we match hardware to what's already on the door rather than forcing a universal kit onto a shaft size it wasn't built for.

Where This Job Goes Sideways

The complication we run into most in Larkspur is a door that's had one piece replaced over fifty-plus years without the rest being brought along - a newer opener bolted to a 1971 door with the original torsion spring, for instance, where the opener is strong enough to mask a spring that's already failing and is about to fail badly. Another is houses where the garage was converted or the door width changed at some point, so the spring on the shaft doesn't match the door that's actually hanging there. We check wire gauge and wind direction before we touch anything, because guessing on a mismatched spring is how someone gets hurt. If we find a mismatch, we'll say so before we start, not after.

Frequently asked questions