While flying my P-47D yesterday, I encountered a hung landing gear; it would not extend after retracting. I elected to land gear-up, and as the grass was still moist, the plane slid safely and did not pick up any "road rash." After taking the plane to the bench to troubleshoot the problem, I saw that the entire bottom of the wing was covered with mud and grass, and that the landing gear retract mechanism was filled with dirt. I decided to wait until the dirt dried before further working on it.
Once I got home, I found this:
It was dry and very easy to get out, as the dirt is mostly a sandy material. I used a brush to get the dirt off the wings and as much as I could from the gear mechanism, but it still looked like this.
I then used a toothbrush and used compressed air to blow the loose dirt out of the gear mechanism. After trying to cycle the gear, it was still very difficult to do so. I had to help it along to get it going the first two times. I used compressed air between cycles, both up and down, to blow out the dirt as it was becoming dislodged from inside the grub screw area. After 10 cycles, the gear worked as good as new, and even sounded like new (which it hadn't done for the past year).
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