Nose Gear Strut Replacement

[YooperMooney]

My mechanic said at the last annual that there is too much slop in my landing gear. He is comparing this to other planes. My Mooney is the only Mooney he works on. We were cautioned that the main gear trusses are very hard to replace and replacing the main gear trusses is off the table. Lasar sells a replacement noise gear truss. They take an existing nose gear truss drill it out and put a larger bolt through it. Anyway, my mechanic wants to replace my nose gear truss. If this truss is replaced, the entire gear system has to be rigged. A friend of mine had a landing gear collapse in his K model after a mechanic re-rigged his gear. So, the question for you is: Do you think that it is a good idea to replace the nose gear truss (on a manual gear Mooney) because of slop in the linkage or go with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." 

[Ragsf15e]

5 minutes ago, YooperMooney said:

My mechanic said at the last annual that there is too much slop in my landing gear. He is comparing this to other planes. My Mooney is the only Mooney he works on. We were cautioned that the main gear trusses are very hard to replace and replacing the main gear trusses is off the table. Lasar sells a replacement noise gear truss. They take an existing nose gear truss drill it out and put a larger bolt through it. Anyway, my mechanic wants to replace my nose gear truss. If this truss is replaced, the entire gear system has to be rigged. A friend of mine had a landing gear collapse in his K model after a mechanic re-rigged his gear. So, the question for you is: Do you think that it is a good idea to replace the nose gear truss (on a manual gear Mooney) because of slop in the linkage or go with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." 

My F had some pretty good slop in the steering… the fix is to get it on jacks, hold the rudder pedals fixed and then lay under the nose gear and move it.  The location of the slop will become clear.  Typically it’s a worn bushing or heim joint or something similar.  My slop was corrected with a new bolt/bushing for pretty cheap.  New nose gear truss?  Nope, I don’t see that.

[PT20J]

Is the slop in the steering or the pivot? And how much slop is there?

Slop in the steering can be checked by jacking the airplane and grabbing the nosewheel and twisting it from side to side and noting where the lost motion is in all the visible components. Slop in the pivot will be noted when moving the nosewheel front to back.

Mooneys typically have some play in the steering that gets worse with wear. The wear points are the steering horn and the rod ends, not the truss. You can shim the horn until it gets bad enough that it needs to be rebushed. Rod ends are easily replaced.

If your mechanic thinks the truss pivot is worn, then perhaps the LASAR bushing mod is a good option. However, you might first try checking the torque on the pivot bolt. 

 

[Sabremech]

4 hours ago, YooperMooney said:

My mechanic said at the last annual that there is too much slop in my landing gear. He is comparing this to other planes. My Mooney is the only Mooney he works on. We were cautioned that the main gear trusses are very hard to replace and replacing the main gear trusses is off the table. Lasar sells a replacement noise gear truss. They take an existing nose gear truss drill it out and put a larger bolt through it. Anyway, my mechanic wants to replace my nose gear truss. If this truss is replaced, the entire gear system has to be rigged. A friend of mine had a landing gear collapse in his K model after a mechanic re-rigged his gear. So, the question for you is: Do you think that it is a good idea to replace the nose gear truss (on a manual gear Mooney) because of slop in the linkage or go with the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it." 

Where are you located in the UP? None of the work your mechanic is recommending is too difficult. I’ve done the oversized bushing and replaced main gear trusses before. 
David

[Fritz1]

as stated before, jack it up move the nose wheel left and right to see where the slop is, a lot of times the slop is in the idler bushing, #10 bolt that needs to be tightened or replaced, put on thread locking compound so it does not come loose again easily. 

[YooperMooney]

Thanks for the advice. Will get more info on where the slop is soon.

[Echo]

My first E had some slop. I had my A&P due oversize bushing and some shims. Not a big expense for parts and labor.