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TorqueMaster Spring Cycle Life and Evolution
The first significant change came 2006 when Wayne-Dalton garage doors made noteworthy improvements to the design and materials for TorqueMaster springs in order to further extend performance of the TorqueMaster spring cycle life. Over the years, Wayne Dalton has been improving the TorqueMaster spring cycle life and other components of the system.
Test results have demonstrated that TorqueMaster Spring cycle life exceeds ANSI/DASMA 102 requirements for 10,000 cycles. The significant improvement came when the material used to create the spring was changed from an oil-tempered spring that use a general-purpose spring wire. It was cold drawn, then quenched and tempered after drawing, in order to get the necessary tensile strength. The heat treatment procedure allows higher tensile strength than hard drawn in the larger wire sizes. The quench and temper also has the advantage of creating a very straight material.
Although the oil tempered spring was meeting all the industry standards Wayne Dalton thought it could further improve the cycle life of the spring? The new springs are made from a cold drawn process to create the tensile strength. This method creates a high tensile strength with very high quality and consistency much more suitable for high cycle applications.
Wayne Dalton did some TorqueMaster spring testing recently on the new music wire springs and has found an average cycle life of over 10,000 cycles. These results continue to confirm that the improvements made to TorqueMaster Spring material and designs have successfully extended cycle life. Note that if you order new springs to replace damaged ones the garage door springs may not be the same length or size as the old ones due to the change in wire.
The second change that occurred in 2007 was the change from what Wayne Dalton called Torquemaster 1 or the Original Torquemaster to the new Torquemaster Plus winding system. This change cut the number of components in half, was a much ore robust design and even more importantly added a drop safety device not allowing the door to close if the spring is broken. If you examine the photo’s below you can see clearly see the difference in number of components.
 
Torquemaster 1 or
Torquemaster Original New
Torquemaster Plus Winding Components
The New Torquemaster Plus system is much easier to install and winding the spring is a little different from the original design. The old design you would use a drill or socket wrench to wind the spring and all the winding components including the counter wheel all where built into the system. The week link in the old system was the nylon gears that often would overheat while winding resulting in stripped gears.
The new design offers more features and is a little different; you wind the springs with wrench, socket or special winding tool that allows you to use a power drill for effortless spring winding. The tool can be used hundreds of times and can be purchased form a Wayne Dalton dealer or online here. The tool simply slides on the exposed hexagon-winding end, you then set the counter wheel to zero and wind the spring to the desired amount of turns with a power drill. Once you reach the desired number of turns place your drill in reverse and give a quick pull of the trigger to release the tool. Failure to follow this last step usually results in the tool being bound to the winding end. The number of turns is usually available in your owner’s manual or can be found in the instructions that come with your replacement springs.
In our opinion the Torquemaster spring system is one on the easiest garage door spring systems in the business to install, service or repair.
The system only has a few shortcomings and one is the inability to add a high cycle spring although the Torquemaster springs do typically have a higher cycle life than standard springs. The second short fall of the system is that at this time it cannot accommodate a side mount operator like the Liftmaster 3800 or like openers.
If you think the repair is out of your league please use the dealer locator at www.wayne-dalton.com to find a dealer that is qualified to make the repairs. I commonly hear of door companies not working on the system or calling the Torquemaster spring inadequate and claiming the system needs to be changed out to a torsion type.
Save your self hundreds of dollars and run away from any dealer that says they cannot replace the existing damaged springs with the same type of spring.
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