Pinned rod end bearings.

[Denis Mexted]

Hello All.

My project has been stalled for a bit as life happens. Also I'm in need of bits!

All bearings in my 'barn find' Mooney are being replaced. To put the undercarriage in I'm needing 6 rod end bearings. The pinned ones. The elevator system also has possibly 8.  Here are two part numbers from my IPC for a '74 M20F.

Both now use a MW-3M-18 as advised by Mooney.

 914012-015 modified bearing (uses a MW-3M-18)

914012-017 is a modified bearing (uses a MW-3M-18)

I cannot see how everyone doesn't need some spares of these. 

Our favourite Mooney supplier has been tearing his hair out trying to obtain these and has approval to have another batch made. 

Just curious if there is much demand for these?

Cheers, Denis Mexted.

 

There are a lot of the pinned rod ends in Mooney actuators.

 

[Fritz1]

interesting question, some of these rod ends are Mooney parts, I had a slightly bent landing gear retraction rod with one slipping rod end in the fuselage of the Bravo a couple of years ago caused by mis-rigging, tried to get the whole rod including ends from Mooney, no joy, just got the tube, eventually straightened the bent tube and replaced the roll pins with monel rivets which is a legal replacement, used in helicopters a lot, if I could get the rod ends I would put the new tube in, drilling the new tube for the old rod ends is doable but the benefit is marginal, bottom line: some of these rod ends are Mooney parts and they source them from a vendor that custom makes them for Mooney, they can only be had from Mooney, there are rod ends that are standard parts. Give Lasar and Maxwell a call and find out what it might take to have a batch of rod ends made.

[Denis Mexted]

Mooney have none. Nor do Lasar but Dan has been great in his efforts and pushing to get another batch made.

I couldn't see why there wasn't greater demand as they are ubiquitous in Mooneys. Surely the odd one fails annuals and others have Hangar Queen restorations like myself. 

[PT20J]

Pretty sure that's just a female rod end that Mooney drills holes through for the roll pins.

[EricJ]

The pinned ends are kind of miserable and I suspect many people replace them with threaded when able.    I recently replaced an aileron control rod and was lucky to find one that was threaded in both ends rather than pinned like my original.

I've never been able to find a legit source for the "pinned" rod ends that Mooney used, so it seems like nobody else uses them, either.   

A minor modification to drill a threaded rod end, or modify the tube to take a threaded end might be the better path forward.

 

[Denis Mexted]

Skip - I think the difference is that the female rod ends are drilled and tapped, as the name implies. However these rod ends are solid.

Re replacing them with threaded male rod end does seem like the go. But I'm happy replacing like with like. I would need to consult some IA's re changing the set up. Not saying it can't be done but it obviously requires welding a threaded receptacle into the tube to receive the threaded rod end. I would have imagined that would require an EA (engineering authority) here in Australia.