Due to the recent purchase of an auto lift (and the recent failure of my 15+ year old garage door opener) - I've decided that now's the time to seriously consider raising the ceiling of my garage to increase the headroom so that the lift can fully extend. There are three major issues concerning the re-design: [B]Truss redesign[/B] Currently my garage roof is a "simple" 2x4 truss system. Each truss is constructed of 4 external 2x4s, two making up the roof angle and two across the bottom making the ceiling of the garage. These two 2x4s are tied together by truss mesh in the center of the garage. There are three additional truss members internal to the trusses. One going straight up vertically, and two going diagonally from the center truss to approx 1/2 up the roof diagonal. I'd like to modify the truss design so that it is essentially an 'Emerald' type ceiling. I've enclosed to try and better define what I would like to do. Comments? Safe? Bad idea you idiot - what are you thinking? [B]Garage Door redesign[/B] In order to make the best use out of this - I would need to re-design the garage door tracks for my garage door. After staring at it a little while, I've come to the conclusion that th ebest way to do this is to section the 90 degree curve into two 45 degree curves and place a section of straight track in between them that is appropriatly long. Again - Comments? Safe? Bad idea you idiot - what are you thinking? [B]Garage Door opener[/B] Given that my current garage door opener is ka-poot, and that Wayne-dalton seems to have, what I thought was, the perfect replace for me in their idrive unit for torsion springs. I purchased one last week. In general this seems to be a very good solution in that it doesn't require any track mechanism and therefore has NO inpact on headroom and also would seem to not be impacted at all by my potentially unusual garage door tracking scheme. Alas though I've run into an issue - as usual. What appears to be a simple install may not be compatible with my current door assembly in that some plastic covers that are supposed to go over the cable drums will not fit. Those covers can only be placed over a 4" drum and my drums are anywhere from 41/4 - 41/2". My guess is that these covers are there to keep the cable from jumping off of the drum on one drum if the other side of the door gets jammed - or on initial closure where there might not be enough of the door pulling down on the springs to allow the door to close fast enough and keeping up with the motor. I'm guessing that changing those drums out for 4" drums is not a simple task and one for a PRO. In addition - it seems as though my door may need some adjustment. So I may need to call someone anyway. (It looks as though my drawing can't be attached. If onyone would like to see it, please let me know and I can e-mail it out.) Thanks in advance for your opinions. THNX BRAD

I just closed the garage door (with an opener) and started to head inside when I heard the sproing!!! The spring on the right side broke. Is this a project a good mechanical person as myself should do or do I need a door specialist? Any tips or web pages to visit to keep myself out of trouble? Your advise is very appreciated, especially in hard $ times as these. Thanks!!