Teflon Conduit Failure

[15384]

After repeated Gear Circuit Breaker pops I put the plane up on jacks to investigate. Long story short after a few cycles I found the right side teflon conduit has jammed. Testing with my amp clamp during gear up mode I saw 30 then 40 then 70 then OL. Matt Kurke says on up cycle 17 amps is normal. The circuit breaker was tripping as it should have and it wasn't a defective circuit breaker. The transmission has less than 300 air frame hours on it since Webco worked on it. Evidently the gear motor could run it up and down but I can't move it by hand.

I will remove in the coming days and replace with either a new Piper or I have access to two original's. One from a 64 the other from a 67. Removing it means I have to remove the interior something I dread.

I thought I had done the right thing by having Matt Kurke install the new teflon conduits and micro switches about 6-7 years ago. I could move my 40 plus year old orginal conduits with my pinky after they were removed. The new tefon conduits were not that easy. The previous owner for 27 years had always oiled the exposed end of the conduits in the wheel well. Something that is not recommended because according to the story dirt etc. can then travel back into the sleeve. But the previous owner kept his plane on a grass strip.

I consider myself lucky. This could have turned out ugly.

Those of you who have changed to teflon be forwarned they too can fail. I hope to find out how and why.

John Rabourn

[Charles Schefer]

John - wow thanks for this report. I converted to teflon conduits some 90hrs ago and basically threw away my originals (I am sorry to say). I am sorry to hear of your difficulty and seriously hope this is a one-off anomaly. For what it's worth I know of an owner of a PA-30 who, with brand new engines (only 14hrs on them) took off on a winter slushy runway. His stock Piper conduits froze up in flight and after hours of circling the airport trying to get the gear down he had to belly it it. After that he moved to the teflons and swears by them. He convinced me to switch which I did. Anyway I really hope your situation is an anomaly and not something the rest of us should expect.

Is it possible one of your conduits was "kinked" somewhere? I just had mine back out the other day and they are fairly stiff. I found myself keeping the bends with as large a radius as possible to avoid kinking them anywhere...

Good Luck,

- Charles

[15384]

Charles it's possiblethe one is kinked. But Matt Kurke the guru of conduits and micro switches and landing gears did the install. I'm confident the install was done properly.

John

[Charles Schefer]