rotorman Posted February 28, 2021 Report Posted February 28, 2021 These Mark's are located on both sides of the vertical vertical stab 3 rivets down. It looks as though there was contact between the horizontal and vertical stab. Is that possible? The Mark's were there when I bought the plane. Always wondered about them but never asked. Quote
carusoam Posted February 28, 2021 Report Posted February 28, 2021 The only way to see how close the rudder gets to the airframe... typically... the rudder is centered and doesn’t move much while on the ground. It is connected to the nose wheel... For reference... I circled the area in red... The nice pic with the shiny reflections kind of hides what we are discussing... See if there is a matching mark on the elevator? Best regards, -a- 1 Quote
Andy95W Posted February 28, 2021 Report Posted February 28, 2021 Those marks are exactly where they would be if the elevator and rudder pushrods were disconnected and someone wasn’t careful enough to make sure the rudder didn’t bang into the elevators. Quote
Guest Posted February 28, 2021 Report Posted February 28, 2021 Aside from Andy’s suggestion, the only other thing that comes to mind is the rudder travel stops have slipped badly. Clarence Quote
PT20J Posted March 1, 2021 Report Posted March 1, 2021 1 hour ago, M20Doc said: Aside from Andy’s suggestion, the only other thing that comes to mind is the rudder travel stops have slipped badly. Clarence This happened on my first M20J - according to the logs, the rudder push pull tubes had been removed for light corrosion removal and painting. Unfortunately, they were reinstalled with the rudder stops backwards. It's easy to check. Have someone sit in the cockpit and press a rudder pedal to the stop and gently move the elevator through it's travel and see if it contacts the rudder. Skip Quote
rotorman Posted March 1, 2021 Author Report Posted March 1, 2021 To answer Corusoam's question, there are no marks on the elevator. But since it has a sharp edge, I wouldn't expected that the light contact that occurred would produce any marks on the elevator. I do recall that either on the pre-buy (1994) inspection or during an annual shortly thereafter, some corrosion was found on a rod. It was cleaned and repainted. I'll check the logs. I will also perform the check Skip suggests. Clarence, can I visually inspect that the travel stops? Nick 1 Quote
Andy95W Posted March 1, 2021 Report Posted March 1, 2021 You can visually inspect the stops yourself. Remove the inspection panel under the left horizontal stabilizer (see photo). Look inside, up, and forward. See photo- red circle is one of the stops (the other is forward of it), the green arrow points to the structure that it hits to stop its movement. 1 2 Quote
carusoam Posted March 2, 2021 Report Posted March 2, 2021 Nice work Andy! I didn’t know those were there... Carusoam Learned something new today! -a- Quote
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