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Looking for advise on replacing my rear door seal as apparently the original is no longer made. Have been told to use M-D Building Products ⅜ in. x 10' Black Sponge Rubber Weather Strip sold at Home Depot: https://www.homedepot.com/p/M-D-Building-Products-3-8-in-x-10-ft-Black-Sponge-Rubber-Foam-Weatherstrip-Tape-06635/100353487?MERCH=REC-_-PIPHorizontal1_rr-_-100355591-_-100353487-_-N#overlay which is similar to the product sold on Aircraft Spruce by Knotts2U for a fraction of the cost. Please post comments with links. Thanks!

Has anyone installed a gas cylinder cabin door assist system on their Mooney? I am interested in a system similar to the Door Steward offered for Cessna, Piper , and Beech aircraft.

when closed, the door to Birdy sticks up out of it's frame by 1/8 to 3/16ths of an inch; is it possible to get this adjusted to be flush? what shop and approx. how long would it take?

On Saturday, my partner noticed that the inner gear door on the pilot side had a rip in the sheet-metal. I have attached pictures. While it is near the rivets, it does not appear to have been a failure of the rivets but rather a jagged tear. I am not sure how a tear like this could occur. Two questions, (1) can this be repaired with some type of metal adhesive or is a weld (or even new gear door) necessary. The pieces do overlap where an adhesion could be made. Second, has anyone had this occur before and what was the cause. Thanks.

Hi everyone, this may seem like a kind of dumb question, but... the hold-open assembly on the door of my M20R bent the other week (careless c.f.i.i) and broke off the door so I've been flying around with it taped up so it doesn't swing around. I have an upcoming instrument checkride and this DPE is a hardass, I had him for my private a while ago. If anything is illegal/breaks some obscure rule, we won't be going flying. I understand the door hold-open assembly most likely isn't required to be airworthy, but where would I find a list that's specific to the Ovation? Also, if anyone has any tips on repairing/replacing the assembly, I'm all ears.

Question regarding a '68C- Does anyone have experience with their door popping open repeatedly despite it seeming to latch securely, and can relate how it got fixed? Mine has been doing this for over a year now. At annual last month, I had a reputable MSC work on it quite a bit, and they replaced some components of the mechanism, including the main pin that is supposed to lock when you push the handle down. The handle in the cabin does seem to latch with more authority and less play now, but it the door still pops open frequently, in climb only. It happens 50% of the time and particularly if I climb steep. If someone keeps firm downward pressure on the handle during climb, it does not happen. I've taken to using a big binder clip with a bungee cord on it to serve the same purpose- this works too but makes my plane look like a Rube Goldberg contraption. SO I'm thinking that with age rear body panel with the hole for the two pins has started to flex just enough in climb to let the pins slip out. Sometimes I'll notice that after leveling off I have a little more noise than expected, and the door is very slightly ajar- I suspect the shorter, spring loaded pin has slipped out at that point. Any slight manipulation of the door after that makes it pop open fully. Obviously I'm taking back to the MSC, but any help in giving them guidance is appreciated. It's cold and noisy enough up there without the door making it worse. And it freaks out passengers even if I prepare them.

I was teaching my partner about emergencies in our 1-month-brand-new-to-us J today. I secretly pulled the gear actuator breaker after takeoff to simulate a failure. It took him a while to notice but he did well: Aviate, Navigate, Communicate. After leveling off and reaching about 130kts, we hear a POP and some rushing wind. I looked back and said something along the lines of "The baggage door just came open!" except slightly more vulgar. I told him to slow down and checked to see that he was before looking back again. I saw the door pop off of the little arm that holds it up, heard some banging, then I saw debris falling to Earth behind us. "And it's gone..." I said. I tasked him with flying the plane while I handled everything else. I called tower in the most annoyed tone because I was the last one who had opened the baggage compartment and this was probably my fault. We kept our speed down around 90 the whole way back and we did well at keeping calm, talking through what might be different with the door open, and just flying the plane. As we touched down a Bonanza holding short said "Tower, the Mooney might like to know that their baggage door is open..." Tower replied "He said it's completely gone." "It looks like it's still attached, though." What? When we slowed to a taxiing pace I opened the door and leaned out. Sure enough, the door was still attached. Hooray! Maybe it's salvageable. After further inspection, I'm not sure what its condition is. The door cannot be closed. Someone decided to put a GPS antenna right above the hinge, so when the door broke free of the arm, it bent the metal over the antenna. I feel like if that hadn't been there, the metal might not have bent so much if at all. There doesn't appear to be any airframe or even skin damage, the hinge doesn't look bent, and the arm sheared its bolt off at the door, so it is still firmly attached to the frame as well. The debris I saw was the interior paneling and maybe some insulation. The latch is strange. It was in the locked position when we got out of the plane. It seems to lock, but it will not open/unlatch correctly. Something is definitely not right internally but we'll probably never know if that happened before or after the incident. I always latch that door by pressing it with my left hand and closing the latch with my right. I typically use the handle to help myself up onto the wing as well, so I would imagine if I hadn't shut it properly I would have pulled it open. There was no abnormal noise or airflow during the runup, takeoff, or the climb. You usually read of these incidents happening during or right after takeoff, never 10 minutes into the flight after various bits of maneuvering. That leads me to think that something broke. But I've always been a forgetful person despite my best efforts so I'll probably never shake the feeling that I was at fault. Anyone know what a new or salvage door costs?

I've got a Bob Fields Door seal on my M20E that leaks. Anyone got experience with finding leaks and/or repairing them?