Snapped and Frayed Lift Cables in Libertyville

A cable does not work on its own. It winds into a grooved drum at each end of the torsion shaft, and both drums have to carry identical wraps for the door to sit level. When a cable lets go, the other side unwinds unevenly and the door pulls out of square before it stops moving.

So fitting a new cable is only the start of it. We take the tension off, seat both cables back into their grooves, re-tension the shaft, and set the drums so the door hangs square with both cables taut through the full travel. Cable fitted without that step puts you back where you started within a few weeks.

Cables come as a pair and they age as a pair. Same install date, same cycle count, same wet floor. When one goes we replace both, because leaving the survivor in is not a saving, it is a second visit with a date already on it.

While the tension is off we check what the failure has already cost: the bottom brackets, the rollers that may have been dragged sideways, the track where the door skewed into it, and the springs on the same shaft. On an older door a cable failure rarely happens in isolation, and finding the rest of it while the shaft is already unwound is far less work than coming back for it.