Airplane Owner Maintenance

A Maintenance Oriented Podcast For Airplane Owners, Pilots, and Mechanics

Month: September 2024

247 – Brake Failure After Landing

September 20, 2024 /

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Everything looks normal in this photo, right?

What we can’t see from this angle is the fact that the brake disc has broken in two pieces!

Check it out:

Here’s the story:

The pilot landed the Piper Cherokee, and after a successful landing, something gave way on the left brake, and it became ineffective. Now we know why.

It’s definitely time for new brake discs, and this airplane will soon get new APS164-02000 Blacksteel brake discs that are corrosion resistant.

It will also be a good time to replace the worn tire on this wheel.

After some research, I discovered a retread Goodyear Flight Special II (like the airplane currently has on it,) is about half the price of a new one, and can be purchased directly from Wilkerson Tire Company here in Virginia!

And when I called them, a real live knowledgable and helpful person answered the phone… it was truly a great customer service experience (it was Mckaellen Wilkerson, a fourth generation member of the team there.)

I love supporting quality family businesses whenever possible, and Wilkerson appears to be one such business.

Here’s a link for their website if you want to check it out:

https://www.wilkersonaircrafttires.com

Thanks Mckaellen, for your excellent help!

In this podcast episode, I also shared two emails I received recently.

One was from Troy, who had some very helpful and interesting things to say about the last episode about single engine RG Cessna airplanes. Thanks Troy, for the reminder that if one of these airplanes is not high enough and the gear is retracted, it can actually lift the airplane right off the jacks… yikes!

Be sure to listen to the audio to hear the rest of his email.

The second email I mentioned was from Fabien.

He and his family moved to the US awhile back and they fly a nice V35B Bonanza. He had a question about where to get his ruddervators stripped and repainted due to some corrosion that has been developing.

If you have any excellent recommendations for V-Tail Bonanza ruddervator paint work, you can contact Fabien directly at the following email:

fabien.turpaud{at}icloud{dot}com

Along with his paint question, he also shared some really great photos and gave permission to include them here:

The filiform corrosion on the ruddervators is not critical yet, but Fabien is being proactive about making a plan to remedy the issue as soon as reasonable.

Hopefully we can find a good solution for Fabien to get his ruddervators repainted with minimal down time so he can continue the adventures with his family!

The post, “247 – Brake Failure After Landing” appeared first at AirplaneOwnerMaintenance.com

246 – Parts Changer or Real Mechanic? Cessna-210 Landing Gear Motor Story

September 14, 2024 /

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This story begins with a squawk from the owner. It went something like this:

“When I fly my airplane, on the first landing gear retraction, the gear begins to move and then the “gear pump” circuit breaker pops. After I reset the circuit breaker, the gear retracts and extends normally with no further problems the rest of the trip.”

Weird…

What could be wrong?

It was my job to figure out what was going on.

I put the airplane on jacks and selected “gear up.”

Sure enough, the gear began to move and after a short time, it stopped mid-travel and the “gear pump” circuit breaker popped.

For once, the problem happened just like the airplane owner had reported.

I checked each gear leg for any binding, and everything appeared nice and free to move.

After evaluating and thinking through the situation, I decided it was a reasonable possibility there was an internal problem in the electric motor on the landing gear power pack.

I removed the motor and quickly discovered it was full of debris. Take a look at the brush housing:

Amazingly, a can of contact cleaner and some compressed air produced a quick transformation… and the brushes actually had lots of good material remaining:

The commutator segments were in similar rough shape when I first disassembled the motor:

But some Scotch-Brite, contact cleaner, and compressed air freshened up this area as well:

The armature housing also had a large amount of debris to be removed:

I didn’t think to take a photo after cleaning, but it turned out very nice as well.

Before disassembling the motor, I thought we might end up replacing it with an overhauled one.

But after seeing how well the motor was made, how simple it was, what good condition the brushes and other parts were in, and how easily it cleaned up, I realized it would likely be good to go for a long time, and I decided to reinstall it.

And here’s the motor after reassembly, along with one of my grubby hands 🙂

Here’s the landing gear power pack area that’s accessible near the copilot’s feet after removing the little plastic cover on the side of the console: (these photos are before I reinstalled the motor.)

Before reinstalling the motor, I put some black electrical tape around the end seams to keep the housing from coming apart (there are 2 long 1/4 inch bolts that go through the length of the motor and attach it into the drive area on the power pack.)

After everything was back together, I ran the landing gear, and it performed flawlessly!

Now, the real test will be to see what happens the next time the owner flies his airplane. Until then, I’m hopeful for a good report.

Sometimes, we do need to just replace parts on airplanes… but sometimes, we can be a real mechanic, and dig in and repair an existing component!

In this case, I’m figuring I saved this owner a chunk of change on this repair.

One final item: when the airplane was in the shop, it became really obvious the right brake caliper was leaking… check it out:

A couple new o-rings and some brake linings took care of this squawk as well.

Now it’s time to go fly!

The post, “246 – Parts Changer or Real Mechanic? Cessna-210 Landing Gear Motor Story” appeared first at AirplaneOwnerMaintenance.com

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