Mooney Rocket Cowl Flaps

[wombat]

The cowl flaps on my Rocket have gotten harder and harder to close.  The last two flights, I have not been able to close them at all in flight even when I slowed down to about 90 KT at the top of my climb.   It's only about 25 hours since annual; is there any lubrication I should be doing to help this?
 

Yes, they were always tough to get closed, but at this point, it's darned near impossible.   I lean over and push on the knob while I pull on the frame tube in front of the windscreen.   I'd be surprised if I'm not putting 150# or more of force on it.

[ArtVandelay]

Somethings wrong, I assume that on the ground they are also difficult to close and are relatively easy to open? I would guess there’s some interference with a hose.

[wombat]

Yes, they are rather difficult to close on the ground too, but not what I would call 'hard' to close on the ground.   Maybe 30# of pressure?    It doesn't feel like they are catching on anything, just a lot of friction in the system.  I wonder if I could replace that knob with a vernier, so I could use the screw action for the first part where it's really tough, and then just push in for the easier part....

 

[ArtVandelay]

I could push/pull my cowl flaps with 2 fingers, so maybe 10lbs, but I have a J. I would still check for interference. I would disconnect the flaps from the cables and then check the control cable travel for resistance, there should be almost none.

[wombat]

The Rocket cowl flaps are known to be extra difficult, the AFM supplement even has a couple of special notes saying you have to do it right when you level off or you won't be able to get them closed.   I have an oil change coming up, I'll pull the cowling off then and see what I can see.

[Fritz1]

a lot of Mooney controls have a .05" piano wire in a coiled metal jacket, if that is what you have put some triflo or comparable on the wire where it moves in and out of the jacket and then put some on the jacket at 3" intervals, move the controls and feel whether they come free, I had a heavy O2 cutoff valve control, triflo got it going in no time

[wombat]

Well, I tried triflow on the coiled wire jacket, and on all of the moving parts I could get access to with the cowl off.    The next time I went flying something different happened and the cockpit knob closed extremely easily.  I left it in that position and on landing the cowl flaps were still open.   So there is something very wrong.   I think the hinge is overcenter now.   And the hinge pins were extremely worn and loose.