Message-Id: <3.0.3.32.19981017173024.012b6be4@olsusa.com>
Date: Sat, 17 Oct 1998 17:30:24 -0400
To: lancair.list@olsusa.com
From: N295VV@aol.com (by way of Marvin Kaye <marvkaye@olsusa.com>)
Subject: Re: Drag Links IV---another factory screw up
Mime-Version: 1.0

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Someone emailed me with a question about whether Lancair supplied an
instruction sheet with the drag links--Hey, we are dealing with Lancair here!
They didn't even know that we needed longer bolts for the installation--forget
instruction sheets!

Well, today I found out something else they didn't tell us---don't proceed
with your installation until you read this!

I got the AN5-42 bolt this morning, went to the airport, and installed it.
Used nice new castle nuts, and nice new cotter pins on all of the new longer
bolts.  (The airplane has to be on jacks to accomplish the assembly, by the
way)  After double-checking all my clearances by hand-raising the front gear,
I then cycled it hydraulically, and, guess what?  My green gear light came on
and stayed on!  I mean it STAYED on.  It stayed on green when then gear was
retracted.

Further examination revealed the following:  The older thinner drag links were
set to depress the spring lever of the microswitch towards the end of the
lever.  The new thicker drag links overlapped the detent rod in the
microswitch and crushed it!  

If you install the new drag links, you probably will have to grind away a
portion of the tang so that it does not seat against the wrong spot on the
microswitch, but rather only pushes against the spring lever.  Moving the
microswitch is a poor option--it means drilling more holes in the yoke--maybe
weakening it--and it is damn hard to see up there for new alignment anyway.

Maybe by the time a few more people have collapsed gears, the factory will
finally do an SB to notify people that there is a problem--and if they can
read, maybe they will incorporate my postings into some sort of an instruction
sheet.  Maybe.  Just maybe.

David Jones
Pissed at Pecatonica, Illinois