Door difficult to close

[kaba]

Seems door is misaligned to the point of difficulty closing and scaring on the bottom frame..

any suggestions on fixes……../

[MikeOH]

Did this just develop, or has it been an issue all along?  Did someone lean on the top of the door?

[N444JJ]

Here are pictures.  I fly right seat and very difficult to close now.  Seems someone must have leaned on it. You can see from the outside it’s not lining up.  Need to lift to close properly. 

[PT20J]

The door is heat treated after forming and is very stiff. It's would be difficult to spring it without damaging the hinge. It looks like the part that is rubbing may be the hold open arm. I wonder if it is shimmed properly. The end where it attaches to the door should have enough AN960-10(L) washers inside the door to hold the arm up close to the bottom of the door. Also, I notice that the interior aluminum trim piece is attached with screws and I believe it was originally attached with 1/8" pop rivets which have much smaller heads so I would check to make sure that the screws are not interfering. If you remove the right seat, you can lay down on the floor and observe the bottom edge of the door as it closes and see exactly what's rubbing.

Skip

[kaba]

Appreciate your thoughts…

thanks………

[N444JJ]

Per advice from a fellow Mooniac, we were able to lift the sagging bar hinge up by pulling up perpendicularly.  That seemed to fix the door alignment/ closing issue.  Very grateful for the advice!  So happy it was an easy fix!   Last picture shows how the door was misaligned before we fixed.  

[N444JJ]

Thanks SKip for the advice!!!!! 

[Bolter]

1 hour ago, N444JJ said:

Per advice from a fellow Mooniac, we were able to lift the sagging bar hinge up by pulling up perpendicularly.  That seemed to fix the door alignment/ closing issue.  Very grateful for the advice!  So happy it was an easy fix!   Last picture shows how the door was misaligned before we fixed.  

 

If that last picture was how much the door was closing before your fix, then the top latch was not even engaging.  

[kaba]

Easy fix…deformed downward arm that holds door opened rubbing on door frame.

three upward tugs and realigned so as not to rub.

door closes correctly

 

Thanks Skip…

[Denis Mexted]

On the subject of doors. Has anyone removed one? How so. 

[47U]

On 6/6/2023 at 5:46 AM, Denis Mexted said:

Has anyone removed one? How so.

Not sure if your F model attaching hardware is the same as my ‘63C…

I had a broken lobe on the ship-side hinge half.  Drove me nuts to look at it.  Door removal looked simple enough… a dozen or so screws visible on the outside of the skin and the nuts were visible on the inside once the interior side panel was removed.  I removed the screws visible from the outside, but the door hinge wouldn’t slide out. Closer inspection on the interior revealed two nuts for which there were no corresponding screw heads.  Apparently, the door was hung on the fuselage with two countersunk screws before the exterior skin was riveted on over the top of the ship-side hinge and hiding the countersunk screw heads.  It took a couple of sharp ‘rotating motions’ of the door to shear the screws and the hinge slid right out.  I think my screws were all -6, but later Mooney used -8 screws.  Needless to say, I did not de-skin the fuselage to replace those countersunk screws.  The replacement hinge from Loewen Mooney Salvage was from a J model and did not have any countersunk screws.  

The two countersunk screws holes are visible below, top and bottom of the ship-side hinge.

[Denis Mexted]

Great. Thanks for the PIREP. 

I’ve tried many times getting in and out without touching it, and thought ‘I should take it off’. 
 

The other day the ‘cone head’ (electron man in Australia) said can we take this door off. 
 

‘Bloody oath’.