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A poll:
Last year, we found some cracks in my door, and replaced it with a serviceable salvage door. One difference we discovered was that the replacement door had an upper-aft door latch pin. Apparently, that pin had been removed from my old door at some point, and I never realized I was supposed to have one.
A few weeks ago, something happened to the linkage with that pin, and it started engaging, but not disengaging, such that the door couldn't be opened. Fortunately, I was outside the plane when this first happened, or it would have been a pain to get out (I now have some needle-nose vise grips inside).
After a few cycles, the pin stopped engaging, too. At least the door no longer gets stuck closed!
I'm torn, because I like everything on my plane to work properly, so I'm inclined to fix the latch pin. However, now that I've seen how that pin can malfunction and jam the door closed, I'm not sure that's a great thing. (This also feels like something I could end up throwing a lot of money at to keep working properly, with limited benefit and potentially more aggravation down the road.)
I used my old door for 7 years without knowing I was missing anything. Should I fix this, or just let sleeping dogs lie?
- Does your Cherokee door have an upper-aft latch pin?
- Have you ever had any problems with it?
- How long have you had it?
Last year, we found some cracks in my door, and replaced it with a serviceable salvage door. One difference we discovered was that the replacement door had an upper-aft door latch pin. Apparently, that pin had been removed from my old door at some point, and I never realized I was supposed to have one.
A few weeks ago, something happened to the linkage with that pin, and it started engaging, but not disengaging, such that the door couldn't be opened. Fortunately, I was outside the plane when this first happened, or it would have been a pain to get out (I now have some needle-nose vise grips inside).
After a few cycles, the pin stopped engaging, too. At least the door no longer gets stuck closed!
I'm torn, because I like everything on my plane to work properly, so I'm inclined to fix the latch pin. However, now that I've seen how that pin can malfunction and jam the door closed, I'm not sure that's a great thing. (This also feels like something I could end up throwing a lot of money at to keep working properly, with limited benefit and potentially more aggravation down the road.)
I used my old door for 7 years without knowing I was missing anything. Should I fix this, or just let sleeping dogs lie?
