RV-4 that I didn't build, third owner. This is a cool RV-4 built by Keith Livingston, IO-360 CS Hertzell. It is approaching 3,000 hrs. Flaps failed down, flaps wouldn't retract after touchdown. I wasn't at my home field so I decided it would be prudent to take a look on the ground. Check the circuit breaker, it wasn't tripped. Reset it. No luck. Called a friend for advice and to see it there was some hidden trap with flying the 20 miles home with full flaps if I kept it below flap speed. Flew it home and called Van's to order new flap actuator . . . ouch! $600. Sound like it will take a week or 10 days to get here.
Anyway, I'm going to tear into it tomorrow, hopefully to get it working temporarily by beating on it or taking it apart. I read through all the old threads on flap actuators so I have a good idea what it looks like and the problems of the past. I haven't checked the switch or wiring so that is the first order of business. I want to try to get this one working as a backup if I can. Looks like I have to take out the floor to the rear seat for access.
What I noticed in my tinkering around is that I have around 37 degrees of flap travel. I measured several times using a digital device (cube) with the cube zeroed on the upper surface with the flaps retraced and the full flaps. I've put around 300 hrs on it and I haven't noticed a problem.
Advice please!
Anyway, I'm going to tear into it tomorrow, hopefully to get it working temporarily by beating on it or taking it apart. I read through all the old threads on flap actuators so I have a good idea what it looks like and the problems of the past. I haven't checked the switch or wiring so that is the first order of business. I want to try to get this one working as a backup if I can. Looks like I have to take out the floor to the rear seat for access.
What I noticed in my tinkering around is that I have around 37 degrees of flap travel. I measured several times using a digital device (cube) with the cube zeroed on the upper surface with the flaps retraced and the full flaps. I've put around 300 hrs on it and I haven't noticed a problem.
Advice please!