Gear Issue At Slower Speed

[dwanzor]

I've owned my 1983 J Model now for about 2 months. Up to this point, I have always been lowering the gear right near the upper limit (132 Kias) as I slow near the airport. 

Yesterday I landed, and did a full stop taxi back. I decided to do a lap in the pattern, and also decided to raise and lower the gear. I have never done this in the pattern before, I have always left the gear down when staying in the pattern. 

Anyhow, I took off, raised the gear, raised flaps, etc. When I got back into the downwind, I was around 100 Kias. I lower the gear lever and nothing happened, didn't hear the gear motor as I typically do. Floor indicator did not move at all. 

I decided to fly back to my home airport, just in case I had a real issue. On the way back, I reset the gear breakers. 

On descent to my home airport, gear worked fine. It was up near max gear speed again (around 130 Kias). 

The only thing different about my attempt on this day was lowering the gear down around 100 Kias versus the usual 130 Kias. 

I texted with my mechanic and he said it could be an airspeed pressure switch. I just recently had pitot/static certification completed, and he mentioned they sometimes damage these with the testing equipment. 

However, I was thinking the airspeed pressure switch was in place to avoid raising the gear accidentally on the ground (requiring minimum airspeed to raise, and not to lower, the gear). 

Any ideas on what could have happened here? 

[Paul Thomas]

When you say reset the gear breakers; had anything popped?

[cliffy]

Its time to put it on jacks and not fly it until the problem is found. 

[dwanzor]

19 minutes ago, Paul Thomas said:

When you say reset the gear breakers; had anything popped?

No, nothing had popped. 

[N201MKTurbo]

What year is your J? What actuator does it have?

 

[IvanP]

It could also be a stuck limit switch or relay. Put the plane on jacks and check the ops on the ground. The airspeed switch is probably not the cause here unless you are retracting the gear at higher speed as well. If the gear retracted at your ususal take off airspeed, the airspeed switch is probably fine.  

[Ragsf15e]

18 minutes ago, IvanP said:

It could also be a stuck limit switch or relay. Put the plane on jacks and check the ops on the ground. The airspeed switch is probably not the cause here unless you are retracting the gear at higher speed as well. If the gear retracted at your ususal take off airspeed, the airspeed switch is probably fine.  

While you’re looking at the limit switches, hit them with contact cleaner and exercise them.  The airspeed switch only stops gear coming up at low (below~65) speed.

[PT20J]

If no circuit breaker pops, it is either the down relay or the down limit switch. The switch is sealed so you can't get contact cleaner to the contacts, but sometimes the plunger gets gummed up and sticks so spraying the plunger with contact cleaner might free it up. With the airplane on jacks and the gear up, you can spray and then exercise the down limit plunger several times. For good measure, you can do the same to the up limit switch with the gear down. If the down limit switch is bad and it is 1CH116-6 that switch is obsolete and the replacement is a 1CH1-6.

Edit: Also might be the gear switch on the panel.

Edited February 17 by PT20J

[A64Pilot]

On 2/17/2025 at 1:24 PM, PT20J said:

 

Edit: Also might be the gear switch on the panel.

That’s what it ended up being on mine, but mine was intermittent, often just delayed coming down by several seconds and sometimes recycling the switch was it.

My advice if you have the solenoids that look like starter solenoids as they are cheap and readily available, just go ahead and replace them and the switch that’s also cheap and inexpensive.

Mine were 40 years old, why not start out with new stuff, reset that clock as it’s only an hour or two work and less than $100 to do so. 

Limit switches I don’t know how available they are, but if they are I probably ought to replace them too, nothing lasts forever.

Edited February 21 by A64Pilot