Hi. Don’t know how to prevent water seepage from back passenger door, including cargo door. Any ideas?

I too am interested to see how people weatherproofed the top seal of the rear and cargo doors. Especially for planes that sit outside

Call Maule parts and get a gutter

Do you (or anyone) have a pic of this gutter? Neither maule I’ve owned has had one.

gutter pic

Maule gutter pic

Not sure if you mean inflight or parked in the rain. Either way, the solution is similar.

Check the door edge to fuselage join. If there is a large gap it can be closed some by carefully bending the edges inward. Use sheet metal pliers or bending brake. Don’t get the door edges in direct contact with the fabric or it will wear through the fabric. Inspect the results, get an idea how large a gap needs to be filled.

Head to the hardware store and look through the selection of EPDM weatherstripping. Larger gaps may need a bulb profile, smaller just thin strips with ridges. If the gaps in between the door lip and fuselage aren’t too big you can start with this step.

That’s how I did mine. The EPDM weatherstripping has held up very well.

<edit> never tried the “gutter”. Looked at one and didn’t like the look. Kind of big and clunky. It is an adhesive bound RV drip guard.

Kirk

Yes but in the North West and SE Alaskan rain, it works well as the seals did not and with closed cell seals the doors did not close well or leaked if the closed well, cant have it both ways.

Just called David Maule to ask him to send me an up close pic of gutters. He said they haven’t put one on a new maule in over 10 years. However, most new Maules don’t sit outside either.

I’m not sure what the original poster is concerned with exactly, but on mine I have th doors sealed up really well, but it’s hard to get a tight fit on the weather stripping where the two doors meet because of the overlap of the skins. I’m meaning a gap of about 1/16” x 1/16”, nothing crazy, but still it’s exactly where water off the wing is funneling to. Plane will be sitting outside in Alaska for next 6 months.

I ordered a drip rail from Maule. They are the same price as on Amazon ($30). Cheap enough to try it out.

Mine is just sealed with self-adhesive weatherstrip. Sits outside in Southcentral Alaska from April until October. Haven’t had any leakage. Southcentral is of course drier than Southeast, but last summer it rained every single day from mid-July on. The only reason it eventually stopped raining is because it started snowing. No leaks last summer either.

Living in Southeast Alaska is living under water, literally. We measure our rain in feet here. My M-5 was on floats outside at our airport float pond about 6-7mo a year and it took me a full two seasons to get it pretty much completely water tight. The Maule rain gutter is a good start and will solve your problem for keeping water out of the rear two right side doors. The adhesive may need some additional help since Maule hasn't used them for awhile. I don't think it looks clunky at all but to each their own. The two front doors need weather stripping and depending on how big your gaps are you'll just have to play with different widths and thickness' of closed cell weather stripping from your local hardware store. I think in the end I used 3 or 4 different widths and thicknesses to seal up my front doors. They were a bit of a challenge initially to get closed but after the foam began to get squeezed down they eased up considerably and most importantly it kept the running water out... Good luck...


James

The stick on gutter works well for the back doors. Make sure your wing roots are not leaking as well.