Matthew P

Do, there is an AD for the Dukes actuator but not for the Vickers from what I understand, regardless, you CANNOT find replacement gears for those things regardless of 20:1 or 40:1 gearsets, Mooney is REFUSING to have anymore made for its customers, my suggestion would be to put the original back in the aircraft, keep the Dukes as a spare...at some point you will either need the motor or the gears or both, Don't know of anyone who rebuilds the motors of any of them anymore. Interesting tidbit, the landing gear actuators in the newer Mooneys, the ones they have parts for, should fit in the older ones, but the newer ones are 24v, not 12v, which isn't necessarily a problem depending on how many amps it draws, could always get a step up converter from 12vdc to 24vdc if 10amps or less..when I asked Mooney about it, I asked if they use the same gears, thinking that might be a way to get them, they didn't have an answer for me.

You can pay $350 now or thousands later..you will need them for your annuals here on out, alternative may be asking the shop that does your current annual to borrow them

When you do, please let me know, is it a dukes or itt actuator?

For the 5th time, I am not going to manufacture or sell parts...but I can understand how people keep assuming that..

Not blaming them but if there are no parts available and they want to chime in, at the end of it they either need to share a viable solution or STFU.

Then they need to get off their dead azz and provide alternative solutions for an aging fleet seeing how their charter is safety...supposedly

Don Maxwell also told Mooney that he would prepay for parts..to no avail...maybe it is at a point now that Mooney is on the verge of folding and if it folded before the parts arrived, what would happen..

only Dukes evidently

Thanks, maybe I can see if a current actuator can be modified to work in the older aircraft, can't imagine they changed the engineering much

So, doesn't really matter, FAA can't tell people who they get their parts manufactured from...I think you all are missing the original posting and intent of this, it is to try to get mooney to do the right thing in supporting its loyal customers that are trying to keep 60 year old aircraft flying, they have the parts, manufacture, means to do it, but will they

So, I'm not getting into the manufacturing of parts for sale, however, I can make the drawings and specs available...the short answer to your question is liability...it would be upto the individual as to wether they want to have/use the gears made, it is a last ditch option that we don't currently have

I'm not sure how many, fortunately I have friends that are in the business trying to help me out, upto a point that is...I won't know the cost of the gears till the drawings are complete and I can send them over to a gear manufacturer for an estimate, when I sent the rough definitions and pictures they estimated $4,800 for minimum order of 10, so $480 ea, which is cheaper than the last ones sold for before the well ran dry...but won't know for awhile yet

That's why I'm trying what I can, either through mooney or opp

Yes, to my understanding, Mooney quit having the 20:1 gears made, but I'll take either if you know os a set that's available

There is no one currently rebuilding the actuators, that is another issue, to my understanding, when mooney selected that actuator they designed gears just for mooney that were placed in the actuators that were to be used for the landing gear...mooney hasn't stated the current manufacturer they use to make the gears, wouldn't matter if we knew as the drawings and specs belong to mooney and they can only build for mooney, which is also the problem. There is no 3rd party supplier

Well, maybe China has all of the drawings for the parts we need and we can start buying them from China to keep our fleet flying...anyone know how to say "Do you have any 40:1 gear sets laying around/" in Chinese

Thanks, I misread the change, glad to know as I'm getting my plane painted and didn't want the 12" I appreciate your time and the clarification

I didn't mean that they make them literally, that have them made, like for the 40:1 gears, in discussion with Mr. Pollack about the issue of getting them to contact their manufacturer of the gears to get a run done.

Except for the parts the MSCs and customers are asking for..i.e. 40:1 gears and actuator motors

So, how was it that you were able to keep the smaller Registration Numbers as they changed the criteria for them to be 12" once the aircraft is repainted?

Well, the problem is, atleast in this instance, that even the MSCs aren't able to get these parts ordered from Mooney...it is not an individual sale, I'm essentially doing the groundwork for mooney to determine if there is enough demand to make a production run of the gear set, which you would think Mooney would be tracking when the MSCs put in request...I am hoping that we meet the quantity requirement for a run but I'm having trouble getting feedback from the 13 MSCs, I think it's because they have tried, but can't get Mooney to do anything so why waste more time...we currently have 35 individuals wanting a total of 55 gear sets, I'm waiting for mooney to tell me the minimum number required to make a production run, only heard back from (2) MSCs, and don't know the pricing yet because it will be based on final numbers..

I'll keep you posted but you need to start looking at options because I only know one person with a spare set of these and he's not interested on getting rid of them...options range fron $6k upto $16k...find used actuator with unknown gear condition to taking it out and changing over to J-Bar....hope something works out for those of us in this situation ..will let you know

You are welcome, hopefully we'll have the numbers needed to make this work

My initial conversations were just trying to find the gears to which they mentioned that they have been unsuccessful getting mooney to provide them...And currently I've contacted each one, via email, asking how many they would want to carry on hand if they were available...