REFLECTOR: Door Seals

[Al Gietzen]

Joe;

I had the same issue, perhaps moreso because I had added some reinforcing
plies in the hinge area to reduce the distortion caused by the air strut.  I
cut away seal material in that area; put on some silicone sealant, covered
that with plastic wrap, and closed the door until it cured, then cleaned up
whatever was excess.  It worked.

Al

-----Original Message-----
From: reflector-bounces at tvbf.org [mailto:reflector-bounces at tvbf.org] On
Behalf Of jewen at comporium.net
Sent: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 7:04 PM
To: Velocity Aircraft Owners and Builders list
Subject: REFLECTOR: Door Seals

I recently fitted the door seals.  Before installing the seals, the pin
tubes in the doors lined up and worked pretty smoothly.  After installing
the seals the doors are very difficult to latch and unlatch.  Upon opening
the doors I noticed the seals were much more compressed at the top in the
area near the hinges (true on both doors.)  Upon further examination, I
noticed the premolded doors (circa 1995)are thicker in the area of the
hinges.  This added thickness is pushing the door up when closed making the
pins and tubes misaligned.  The rest of the sealing surface on the doors
seems to fit very well (flight testing will of course confirm or reject the
fit observation.

Has anyone had this problem before and/or remedies?  The only fix I can
think of is to reduce the thickness in the seal area to match the rest of
the door; however, I assumed this area was thicker to provide additional
strength.

Thanks,
Joe


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