Precise Flight SpeedBrake 2000 - only one side extended

[Yariv]

Today, while approaching Orcas Island I activated the speed brakes during a descent and was surprised to see just the right speed brake extend. I pressed it again to retract it and had to slow down the airplane the old way:-).

on the ground it tested ok.

has this happened to any of you? 
thanks.

 

[carusoam]

Check the hours that it has on them…

The clutches have a tendency to wear…

OH is simple and expensive…

And hours aren’t really helpful, but it’s the best guidance we have…

The system is designed to allow for this to occur without tremendous affect….

it could be a cleaning or lubrication challenge as  well…

PP thoughts only…

-a-

[LANCECASPER]

12 hours ago, Yariv said:

Today, while approaching Orcas Island I activated the speed brakes during a descent and was surprised to see just the right speed brake extend. I pressed it again to retract it and had to slow down the airplane the old way:-).

on the ground it tested ok.

has this happened to any of you? 
thanks.

 

Precise Flight says that every year the worm gear should be lubricated with Aeroshell 22. DO NOT USE SPRAY LUBRICANTS. You will find that even some of the "best" Mooney repair facilities have never heard about this. The last Mooney I owned showed in the logs that they had the speedbrakes sent back for service after about 10 years. Twelve years later they were slow to retract when I bought the airplane and noisy. After cleaning out the old grease and servicing them every year they were fine. They worked much better when I sold the airplane after 6 years than when I bought it.

 

 

Here are some pictures of what it looks like inside (taken from another Mooneyspace post):

 

 

By the way, the invoice showed that Precise Flight 20 years ago charged roughly $200 to repair each cartridge. I think it's well over $1000 now but they call it an overhaul. I'm sure nearly all of the ones that are sent in aren't serviced every year.

 

EDIT: Also on airplanes with TKS, the fluid will rinse away the grease. Even on airplanes that are flown a lot through the rain this can happen.  Since the speedbrakes are behind the fuel caps, 100LL if overfilled can get down in the cartridge and easily dissolve the grease. For sure they should be serviced every year, but depending on the time of year your annual is done, it might not hurt to check them twice a year and re-apply Aeroshell 22. 

 

[Comobowz]

Does anybody happen to know how much labor is involved in the removal and lubrication of the speedbrake 2000's?  Just curious as my bird goes into annual end of the month and I'm planning to make sure that they take care of it during the annual, but curious as to what I'm getting into. 

[LANCECASPER]

8 minutes ago, Comobowz said:

Does anybody happen to know how much labor is involved in the removal and lubrication of the speedbrake 2000's?  Just curious as my bird goes into annual end of the month and I'm planning to make sure that they take care of it during the annual, but curious as to what I'm getting into. 

It won't be part of their annual inspection unless you specifically tell them to do it. If you're having them do it, an hour a side should do it. It is very simple to take the cartridge out and disconnect the power, clean it, service it and re-install. They may never have serviced one before, since most shops just send them out to Precise Flight, so you might bring in the page above showing the maintenance list. All in all you might end up paying an extra hour for their learning curve.  This is something an owner can easily do before the annual.

[Comobowz]

6 minutes ago, LANCECASPER said:

It won't be part of their annual inspection unless you specifically tell them to do it. If you're having them do it, an hour a side should do it. It is very simple to take the cartridge out and disconnect the power, clean it, service it and re-install. They may never have serviced one before, since most shops just send them out to Precise Flight, so you might bring in the page above showing the maintenance list. All in all you might end up paying an extra hour for their learning curve.  This is something an owner can easily do before the annual.

Perfect, and yes, I am planning to add it to my list for them to do at annual.  Thank you!

[rgpilot]

The newer version of the speed brakes uses a controller in the rear belly of the plane to detect that both speedbrakes are deployed. If only one works the controller will retract the other speedbrake. I have these on Ovation 2. If you have to send them back to Precise Flight they require both speedbrakes and the controller to be sent in.

[MatthiasArnold]

+1 for owner maintenance of speed-brakes!

Besides cleaning and re-lubrication with Aeroshell don't forget to service the microswitches and the connectors/plugs with contact cleaner.
This helped a lot (in my case).

Best,

Matthias

[Will.iam]

Yes those are my pictures. Took me 3 hours as i was triple checking every step and wasn’t sure which screws needed to be removed and which ones did not. Mine had grease but it looked old and dirty i thought cleaning them up and putting new grease wasn’t going to fix my left side not coming up but i was wrong. Worked so well i did the right side as preventative maintenance even though it was working fine. They deploy faster now and $50 for a tube of aeroshell 22 and my time was way cheaper than sending them in and my plane was down for only an afternoon instead of days maybe weeks had i sent them in. Just take pictures before to take each part apart so you know how to assemble it back together. 

[PT20J]

Same thing happened to me. I have the older 100 series. Precise Flight charged $1188 + shipping to repair my right speed brake in July 2021. The problem with the design is that everything is open to the elements. Lubrication is a good idea but is unlikely to be your problem. According to Precise Flight, failure to deploy is either bad microswitches or a bad motor. They said water intrusion is the usual culprit. Apparently these components are not hermetically sealed.

I found that I can lube mine from the top without removing the cartridges by using a coffee stir stick. The aluminum looks thicker on the 2000s but on the 100s it is thinner and the screws on top of the wing only have about 2-1/2 threads to catch and eventually the steel screws wear out the aluminum threads if they are removed and reinstalled a lot. I had to drill out several and tap them for #10 screws. I noticed when removing the cartridge that some had been up sized previously.

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