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Door handles

 
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Eric_Kallio



Joined: 29 Jan 2006
Posts: 149
Location: Baton Rouge, LA

PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 9:52 am    Post subject: Door handles Reply with quote

After spending another few work sessions and another 50-60 hours trying to refit my doors I have reached a few conclusions. First I have done nothing as miserable in my life as screwing with this doors. In 18 years in the Army, Uncle Sam has yet to throw anything at me that I despised this much. This includes going 6 months without a real shower or real food. I don't even care about pretty anymore, I just want the things to work.

With that, they work now...sort of. The doors fit, from the inside they latch relatively easily, and I am getting good movement of the pins. However, the exterior flush handles I installed are useless in my installation. I can turn them just enough to get the third latch cam to engage, and the pins to enter the guides. The exterior handles to not have enough leverage to over come torque required to completely engage the latches from the outside. What is worse though is if you have the door fully latched from the inside you can not open the doors from the outside. Twice now I have literally ripped the handles and the glass clean apart from the door requiring reglassing and more reinforcement. These doors are standing between me and attaching the wings. I have wrung out my avionics and am getting ready to put this thing into the air, I may just have to do it as a convertible or something. Perhaps it is time to go back to the exterior handles from Vans and get the leverage back to the latch mechanism.

Eric Kallio
The 9th level of door Hell!!


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Strasnuts



Joined: 10 Feb 2009
Posts: 502
Location: Salt Lake City, UT

PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 10:14 am    Post subject: Re: Door handles Reply with quote

Sorry for the frustration. The RV-10 doors are definitely the achilles heal of the plane. You should not need a ton of leverage to close the door handles and I think this would be an unsafe situation or when you are out at some small airport without cell coverage you will bust your door up and be stranded.
You may have tried all these but here are some recommendations.
Some things I have seen are door pins that bind going in the cabin guide and structure, make sure the pins are extending going in parallel to the outside skin and level through the guide. Run a 7/16 reamer through your door guides and structure on the same plane as the pins extend.
Super tight seals (like mine) that you have to relieve a little. I ended up squishing my seal so damn tight that the door would flex, I opened the reveal from the door to the cabin lip by 1/16 and it made a huge difference and the seal is still really squished.
I can't remember if you bought my door pins. Of course you think I am trying to sell them BUT the angled pins and Delrin door guides make a huge difference with ease of door closing. The delrin acts as a good bearing surface and the angled pins allow a full 7/16 of mis-alignment. Bullet pins only have 7/32 of misalignment allowance.

Good luck - wish you lived closer


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kearney



Joined: 20 Sep 2008
Posts: 563

PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 12:27 pm    Post subject: Door handles Reply with quote

Hi Eric

I feel your pain as I too was in exactly the same position. I also have
flush handles and had one seize for the same reasons you have experienced.

Here are a few suggestions that might help:

1. Get some white grease or similar and use liberally on the door mechanism.
Be sure to get it into the rack and gears.

2. Carefully disassemble the flush door mechanism (there is a small ball
bearing in a recess with a small spring so don't loose them.

3. Grease the inside of the flush door handle.

I found that there is a huge amount of internal friction in the door
mechanism. A little grease makes the door action very sooth and light. If
there is any significant resistance to operating the mechanism when the door
is open, find the source and fix it. I made my door pin holes on either end
of the door slightly oversize as I found that they were binding there as
well.

You may also want to see if the pins are not exactly running straight
through the guide blocks. If the rack is a bit off center from the pin, you
may find putting a slight bend in the pin will allow it to travel straight
through the block and not be pushed up or down by the rack (which can cause
some binding).

A bit of grease on the guide blocks helps as well.

Another factor that may cause a lot of problems is the amount of pressure
required to close the doors. I found that if the doors require a lot of
pressure to "Pull" the doors into place so the pins engage, then it takes a
great deal of effort to insert the pins.

I moved my door frame inboard by about 1/8" on the bottom to reduce the
pressure on the door seals. The amount of effort required to pull the doors
in enough for the pins to engage is not quite light.

Cheers

Les
#40643

--


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conradb



Joined: 02 Jun 2008
Posts: 11
Location: warner robins, georgia

PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 2:24 pm    Post subject: Re: Door handles Reply with quote

Eric Kallio;

I have just completed my X-10 doors and overcame the mechanical stiffness of Van's original door handles with some common Vaseline. Now they close really great. However, I believe that after a few months I will replace the Vaseline with some type of good quality white grease. Also, my doors are completed with the McMaster Carr door seals.

Conrad Booze in Georgia


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Tim Olson



Joined: 25 Jan 2007
Posts: 2872

PostPosted: Sun Sep 19, 2010 6:56 pm    Post subject: Door handles Reply with quote

I'd have to agree here. For around 600 hours
I had no lubrication on my pins and guides at all.
I was totally shocked at the difference made by
simple lithium grease on the pin ends and guide blocks.
There may be better grease solutions, but I just
had some handy and decided to give that a try.
It was amazing how smooth it was after that.
Now I wish I had done the rack gears and stuff.

Tim Olson - RV-10 N104CD
do not archive
On 9/19/2010 3:19 PM, Les Kearney wrote:
[quote]

Hi Eric

I feel your pain as I too was in exactly the same position. I also have
flush handles and had one seize for the same reasons you have experienced.

Here are a few suggestions that might help:

1. Get some white grease or similar and use liberally on the door mechanism.
Be sure to get it into the rack and gears.

2. Carefully disassemble the flush door mechanism (there is a small ball
bearing in a recess with a small spring so don't loose them.

3. Grease the inside of the flush door handle.

I found that there is a huge amount of internal friction in the door
mechanism. A little grease makes the door action very sooth and light. If
there is any significant resistance to operating the mechanism when the door
is open, find the source and fix it. I made my door pin holes on either end
of the door slightly oversize as I found that they were binding there as
well.

You may also want to see if the pins are not exactly running straight
through the guide blocks. If the rack is a bit off center from the pin, you
may find putting a slight bend in the pin will allow it to travel straight
through the block and not be pushed up or down by the rack (which can cause
some binding).

A bit of grease on the guide blocks helps as well.

Another factor that may cause a lot of problems is the amount of pressure
required to close the doors. I found that if the doors require a lot of
pressure to "Pull" the doors into place so the pins engage, then it takes a
great deal of effort to insert the pins.

I moved my door frame inboard by about 1/8" on the bottom to reduce the
pressure on the door seals. The amount of effort required to pull the doors
in enough for the pins to engage is not quite light.

Cheers

Les
#40643

--


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gengrumpy(at)aol.com
Guest





PostPosted: Mon Sep 20, 2010 5:10 am    Post subject: Door handles Reply with quote

I have used LP2 on my gears since my first ACI, and mine work very
smoothly and easily.

One of these days I'll get around to trying to install the center
latch......

grumpy

do not archive

On Sep 19, 2010, at 9:53 PM, Tim Olson wrote:

[quote]

I'd have to agree here. For around 600 hours
I had no lubrication on my pins and guides at all.
I was totally shocked at the difference made by
simple lithium grease on the pin ends and guide blocks.
There may be better grease solutions, but I just
had some handy and decided to give that a try.
It was amazing how smooth it was after that.
Now I wish I had done the rack gears and stuff.

Tim Olson - RV-10 N104CD
do not archive
On 9/19/2010 3:19 PM, Les Kearney wrote:
>
>
> Hi Eric
>
> I feel your pain as I too was in exactly the same position. I also
> have
> flush handles and had one seize for the same reasons you have
> experienced.
>
> Here are a few suggestions that might help:
>
> 1. Get some white grease or similar and use liberally on the door
> mechanism.
> Be sure to get it into the rack and gears.
>
> 2. Carefully disassemble the flush door mechanism (there is a small
> ball
> bearing in a recess with a small spring so don't loose them.
>
> 3. Grease the inside of the flush door handle.
>
> I found that there is a huge amount of internal friction in the door
> mechanism. A little grease makes the door action very sooth and
> light. If
> there is any significant resistance to operating the mechanism when
> the door
> is open, find the source and fix it. I made my door pin holes on
> either end
> of the door slightly oversize as I found that they were binding
> there as
> well.
>
> You may also want to see if the pins are not exactly running straight
> through the guide blocks. If the rack is a bit off center from the
> pin, you
> may find putting a slight bend in the pin will allow it to travel
> straight
> through the block and not be pushed up or down by the rack (which
> can cause
> some binding).
>
> A bit of grease on the guide blocks helps as well.
>
> Another factor that may cause a lot of problems is the amount of
> pressure
> required to close the doors. I found that if the doors require a
> lot of
> pressure to "Pull" the doors into place so the pins engage, then it
> takes a
> great deal of effort to insert the pins.
>
> I moved my door frame inboard by about 1/8" on the bottom to reduce
> the
> pressure on the door seals. The amount of effort required to pull
> the doors
> in enough for the pins to engage is not quite light.
>
> Cheers
>
> Les
> #40643
>
> --


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jchang10



Joined: 05 Jul 2006
Posts: 227

PostPosted: Mon Sep 20, 2010 8:00 am    Post subject: Door handles Reply with quote

Eric... i absolutely agree with what was already said. Lube the door
pins at least.

I have stock door handles and initially, they still required too much
effort to close, even after polishing and porting a bit. All I did was
put some boelube on the door guides, and it was a night and day difference!

Extra leverage would only cause *something* else to break. (Stealing
Deems voice, ask me how i know.) IMHO, i think the doors should be able
to close with a finger or two, easily.

Jae
#40533


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hotwheels



Joined: 01 Jun 2007
Posts: 240

PostPosted: Wed Sep 22, 2010 5:51 am    Post subject: Re: Door handles Reply with quote

Both my flush door handle bases have come out during door fit as well. These were originally epoxied using flocked cotton and west systems. I am redoing both with a base of the above plus reinforcing glass cross pieces... and am adding a screw to the aft lip as it gets the most torque.

I'd suggest that the manufacturer add several lips in the handle base to allow screws to be added where desired... Like this maybe:

^ ^
-----O
v v

My doors are REALLY tight too. I added lube and that helped some. Polishing the pin tubes helps. I suspect that the root cause is that the pin tubes are not running true throughout their movement cycle. I expect lots of small iterations to get it right.

Regards,
Jay


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ivankris



Joined: 29 May 2009
Posts: 21
Location: Guelph, Ontario. Canada

PostPosted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 7:49 pm    Post subject: Re: Door handles Reply with quote

I agree that flush handles from iflyrv10.com need to have additional support to be more securely attached to the structure of the door. here is a picture of what did to achieve that. Also, I agree that some lubrication of the pins is in order, I used Bolube and after the doors have sat closed for a while and now almost 70 hours of flight time the doors open and close easily and the flush handles have stayed in place.

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Image00102.jpg
 Description:
These saddles were made out of 1/4" hard balsa wood sheet and epoxied in place
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