Month: October 2018

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Retractable landing gear is an incredible feature when everything works properly.  On Bonanzas and Barons, the gear motor is like the heart of the system.  And sometimes, a heart repair, or even a “transplant” is necessary.  Sometimes, the heart, (or the gear motor,) shows signs and symptoms of poor health, and sometimes, problems become apparent during “routine checkups,” or annual inspections.

I’ve seen issues with landing gear motors, both during the annual inspection, and at other times.  In today’s episode, we talk about 6 separate stories of issues with landing gear motors on Bonanzas and Barons.  When we put them all together, they’re useful to learn some important things about keeping the landing gear system performing at its best.

Here are the stories we cover today:

A Beech 58 Baron:  An issue with the gear motor and the landing gear relay.

A Beech A36 Bonanza with a gear motor problem.

A Beech 55 Baron with some “broken teeth.”  (They just barely got the gear extended with the hand crank.)

A Beech A36 Bonanza with inconsistent gearbox clearance, and the solution for the problem.

A Beech V35 Bonanza with inconsistent gearbox clearance, and the solution.  (It was different than the solution for the A36 Bonanza.)

Another Beech A36 Bonanza (the one I’m working on now at Classic Aviation, LLC.) with a very strange issue… occasionally, the gear motor would run about half speed for the gear extension cycle.

For this last story, we sent the gear motor to Aircraft Systems, Inc. in Rockford, Illinois.  Jeff has been fantastic to deal with.  I highly recommend this shop.  http://www.acs-rfd.com/  Or if you’d like to call them, the number is  815-399-0225.

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Today, I’m sharing with you a story about busting my knuckles trying to remove a locknut from an engine mount bolt.  The nut was bottomed out on the shank of the bolt, making it very hard to hold the bolt still while loosening the locknut.

I could have avoided all that if I had put my Mechanix gloves on first 🙂

You’ll also hear an audio message from Jerry Esquenazi, the owner of an RV 8 that he built, and also partner in an F33A Bonanza.  Thanks for the message Jerry!

One last thing, could you help me?  I need some feedback about what you need as an airplane owner, when it comes to maintenance.  I put together a VERY SHORT 3 question survey, and I’d be grateful if you could take a minute and answer 3 simple questions.  Thanks!

Here’s the link for the survey (it’s very short):

Click here to answer 3 quick questions.

Thanks for your feedback!

Dean