Landing gear advice asap

[MountainGoat]

I just noticed one of my gear doors is bent, moght have already flown with it.  Does anyone know if this will damage the tire?  See pics

Edited June 10, 2023 by MountainGoat

[DonMuncy]

Not a good thing and needs repair, but I don't think it will hit or hurt the tire. That door is mounted to the wheel/tire, so they move together. It won't get any closer to the tire than it already is, unless you did a very hard landing and bulged the tire out more. My opinion.

[MountainGoat]

If I stayed under 130 kcas, any harm flying with gear down for hour?  I don't see any thing in the poh

Edited June 10, 2023 by MountainGoat

[MountainGoat]

Thanks! just got back safe and slow

[toto]

My biggest concern would be how the gear doors got bent like that. If I saw my gear doors bent with no explanation, I wouldn’t fly the plane until I had a very clear understanding of what happened and I’d probably want someone to look over the plane pretty carefully. 

[Yetti]

[M20F-1968]

Depending upon the thickness of what you are bending/straightening you may want to look at hand sheet metal seamers.  

https://www.amazon.com/ABN-Inch-Straight-Metal-Seamer/dp/B01M22HF9K/ref=sxin_16_pa_sp_search_thematic_sspa?content-id=amzn1.sym.fdcf0922-3645-4367-8fef-7b209ee72614%3Aamzn1.sym.fdcf0922-3645-4367-8fef-7b209ee72614&crid=3SYQXG54Y8AOY&cv_ct_cx=sheet+metal+tools+bending&keywords=sheet+metal+tools+bending&pd_rd_i=B01M22HF9K&pd_rd_r=bc0dfcd2-1b25-4fe4-995a-742725fd4d8d&pd_rd_w=ghng1&pd_rd_wg=oSknK&pf_rd_p=fdcf0922-3645-4367-8fef-7b209ee72614&pf_rd_r=ZFME10R33DZFZE01A9EF&qid=1686464613&sbo=RZvfv%2F%2FHxDF%2BO5021pAnSA%3D%3D&sprefix=sheet+metal+tools%2Caps%2C185&sr=1-4-f198e6a3-f8ba-40fc-adb1-ef5348fd130e-spons&psc=1&smid=A1UMBRA5ZTBCX8&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEyWUFYRlVVUU9IVlZJJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwODExNzkzMjRRV1VLM1VUNk5XWCZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwMjU1NzE2UU8wTVdHMU1aTThZJndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3Bfc2VhcmNoX3RoZW1hdGljJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==

I think I have also seen them with nylon-protected jaws.

John Breda

[KSMooniac]

Did your plane get towed over a chock? Both of those doors are damaged. I don't think you'll just bend the lower door back to nominal either... It will likely need a repair.

Maxwell has a great sheet metal wizard that might be able to save it.

Sent from my LM-V600 using Tapatalk

[1980Mooney]

6 hours ago, KSMooniac said:

Did your plane get towed over a chock? Both of those doors are damaged. I don't think you'll just bend the lower door back to nominal either... It will likely need a repair.

Maxwell has a great sheet metal wizard that might be able to save it.

Sent from my LM-V600 using Tapatalk
 

If the wheel went up over the chock the doors would have cleared it since they are in the same relative position with the tire.  Perhaps a large wooden chock was pulled just clear of the tire but still directly in front of the gear doors.  @MountainGoat And perhaps as you rolled forward the doors started bending up along the incline of the chock.  It would have been gradual rather than the thump/shock of hitting something at speed.  You were advancing the engine in order to move so there was likely plenty of noise and vibration to cover and sound or vibration from the wheel - and perhaps you had noise cancelling headsets on.

Edited June 11, 2023 by 1980Mooney

[MountainGoat]

I don't think it was rolling over chocks.  I flew from my home field, and my chocks were in the back, and I always chock the nose. May have been something else I rolled over though.  Weird.  Not sure how it happened, waiting to hear from my a&p about repair.  Thanks for advice all.

[Bolter]

The inner and outer doors appear bent along the same angle (they are in the same plane - geometrically speaking).  I liked @KSMooniac idea of rolling over something that hit the doors but was not in the track of the tire, but the witness marks suggest a speed element, to me.  

I have heard of severe banking during landing can see the gear doors touch pavement.  At some level of bank, the doors will touch the ground along with the near tire.  Eventually you would also a drag a wing tip, and that would be obvious and terrifying. 

@MountainGoat did you have any crazy cross wind landings recently?  Any contact marks of the bent doors on the wing to suggest you may have made several retractions of the gear already, and this was damage from several flights before?

Added later: I recall talking to Don Maxwell at OSH and he commented about always getting a few door repair requests from Mooney's taxing through the grass and contacting things.  I think that only affected the inner doors, not both doors.  

Edited June 13, 2023 by Bolter
recalled something else

[glenn reynolds]

I had a damaged gear door (it had been rigged wrong, too tight actuating rod, broke the hinge).  the field shop removed the damaged door and the corresponding other wing door to keep the plane symmetric and I flew while the door was being repaired.  I'm not allowed to say how I know, but DO NOT fly with just one door removed!

[MountainGoat]

My A&P's best guess was a hard or banked landing with low tire pressure (tire pressure was a bit low).  I don't recall a specific time when this would have happnd, but I'm not a great pilot so many of my landings I wish I could do better.   He also said he could straighten it out.  The plane is 45 min away, so I'll check the repair out next time I fly--probably in the next week or so for my night currency. 

Thanks again for all the help/advice!

[1980Mooney]

14 hours ago, MountainGoat said:

My A&P's best guess was a hard or banked landing with low tire pressure (tire pressure was a bit low).  I don't recall a specific time when this would have happnd, but I'm not a great pilot so many of my landings I wish I could do better.   He also said he could straighten it out.  The plane is 45 min away, so I'll check the repair out next time I fly--probably in the next week or so for my night currency. 

Thanks again for all the help/advice!

That doesn't sound very plausable unless you were in a near crash attitude.  Look at the pics.  In order for that to happen while you are landing the red lines would need to be parallel to the ground scraping the runway.  You would have to be on your nose and your right wing tip would be dragging.  Plus if you were landing the damagae would have been worse - the aluminum would have been really ground down.

I think it more likely that you taxied near something that just clipped the gear doors.

[Austintatious]

That looks like the tire went off the edge of a taxiway and the door contacted the higher cement/asphalt, Thus the double curve.