I paid multiple firms over the years extra money to properly grease the entire landing gear but, as per standard GA maintenance practice, it was never done since the plane was new in 2002 – till today. It’s quite interesting… inside the spring shown is a telescopic spring guide
and if that gets clogged up or corroded, the lock may not work, so the down-lock will be relying on hydraulic pressure entirely, leading to a gear collapse when you go around a corner…
The depiction in the MM is rubbish but it is item 110
Mine was fine but definitely needed greasing.
I am doing all this because the engine is away for 3 weeks, so we have extra time.
All cleaned and freshly greased
And this is the emergency gear release
Another video showing close-up door operation
What matters is that the door is (a) tight and (b) correctly located when the gear is UP i.e. you need to test this on jacks. The adjusting link on the door is tweaked so the door is held at just the right (perfectly flush) position when the gear is UP.
The play on the door is a bit worrying but it’s a bad design, with some female parts made of mild steel which have steel pins in them, but the holes are open-grooved all along
so any grease you put in there escapes on the first flight. So the linkage wears quite quickly. The female parts (pic above) are about $300 each (2014 price so probably 2x now) and there are four of them. The female parts should be made of phosphor-bronze, or at the very least the holes should be normal closed holes so that grease can be properly retained. If you ever get somebody to make some for you (under the FAA owner produced parts regime) the solution is obvious. There is also another obvious mod to the gear door itself, where a steel pin goes through a 1.5mm thick aluminium flange and obviously wears it out; there should be proper bushes in there, but then the pin ends up too short so a new one has to be made.
