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Yesterday, returning from San Luis Obispo, my landing gear failed to retract (something I realized a few minutes after takeoff). Noticed the slow climb and difficulty gaining speed etc once levelled off. So checking the gear down light, it was green! OK. The gear switch was in the up position so surely I had not forgotten. The actuator C/B had tripped. So I thought maybe it was a temporary thing and I cycled the gear switch a couple of times. I continued to trip when in the up position. So I left the gear in the down position and continued the flight at 100-105 knots. How embarrassing! Fortunately, nothing else was wrong. I had to play with the power settings and opened up the cowl flaps to keep the CHTs under 400. Made the flight back 30min later than expected. I told ATC about my problem (before they realized that had found the slowest Mooney in the world). They were very helpful, offering assistance at every change in controller including OAK centre. I thought that was great. At Livermore, before landing I wanted to make sure I didn't have asymmetrical deployment (unlikely since the plane flew level without significant control inputs), I had the tower take a look on a low approach. Everything looked good. Circled the pattern and landed uneventfully. On the ground, I saw that one of the nose gear linkages (left nose gear door) was dangling and disconnected from the door. So it is clear that while retracting, the nose wheel could not retract and it was contacting the door and stopping the motor. Now, I have to get that linkage re-connected for sure and the gear swing checked etc. What else could go wrong - damage to the actuator motor, misalignment in the linkages? I will probably have it fixed on the field and tested, but any advice on what else to look for would be appreciated from the experts on this group... And of course, a more careful preflight looking at the linkages in the gear doors for all wheels would be on my checklist! Thanks.