'77 J cowl flap hinge broken

[Shmoo]

First post after buying my J in August is sadly a diagnosis/parts buy... 

The outboard corner of my right side cowl flap is disconnected from the hinge assembly. It looks like one of the angle brackets (p/n 650177 here best seen on page 7) is broken at the bend. Can I just replace that bracket? Or do I need to order and replace more of the hinge assembly? I hadn't noticed any vibrations and the other hinge attachment points feel firm.

Here's a really bad photo. I outlined the disconnected piece of metal that i think is p/n650177.

Thanks for the help! Otherwise she's been great!

[KSMooniac]

You can replace or repair that bracket with standard practice. You might have to duplicate the bracket.

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[EricJ]

Duplicating the bracket is probably the easiest way to go.   There's an SB on early J cowl flaps that has a lot of drawings and guidance on making an improvement if it hasn't already been done.

There've been a lot of field modifications to these as well, from what I've seen.

Mooney Service Bulletin M20-231.

https://www.mooney.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/SBM20-231.pdf

[N201MKTurbo]

It is not a good design. Mooney even admitted it in the service bulletin. As stated above just use standard sheet metal procedures to patch it back together for another 10 years or so.

[jaylw314]

I recall someone mentioning that for prevention, leaving the flaps in trail rather than fully open puts less stress on that hinge.  If you live in a cooler climate, in the future see if you have manageable temps that way

[mooneyflyfast]

Looks like there are two service kits-  001 and optional 002. Does anyone know what the difference is?

[PT20J]

1 hour ago, mooneyflyfast said:

Looks like there are two service kits-  001 and optional 002. Does anyone know what the difference is?

Instructions say to install optional kit if not already installed, so it was probably available earlier.