Flap Actuator Failure

Gents, I have had several intermittent failures with my flap actuator over 75 hrs but all have cleared up after a little manual movement until last night. Everything worked fine during the approach until I executed a touch n go. Full power, try and dial in half flaps but nothing. Go around and land again, unable to change flap settings.

Results of inspection.


Remove actuation base from flap arm. Rotate, No jamming. Power up and works fine. re-install, cycle 4-5 times -no problem.

Could this be caused by brush contamination, or possibly jack screw uneven wear? Other.

Grease on the commutator - there are probably quite a few posts about this.
http://www.vansairforce.com/community/showthread.php?t=12973 is one thread. This problem has been around for quite a few years.

Flap Actuator

Let me add a few more details:

Pittman motor.

I read some of the motor issues regarding pre-Pittman products and not sure if this also affected the Pittman units.

That sounds exactly like the same failure mode of the earlier motors. I retrofitted for manual flaps for this very reason.

Flap problem

I had the same problem in my 8. After suspecting grease contamination in
the brushes and taking the motor apart 3 times,I discovered the real culprit.
During a bench test run in, I found as the motor heats up, it binds on the shaft
and housing. By simply removing one or two of the spacer washers the problem was solved.
It's funny that mine started giving me trouble at the 75 hour point as well. I
now have over 250 trouble free hours on it ! You can search under flap motor
problems and find more details. Good luck with it........ Mark Cigal N617MC

Flap Motor

After removing and degreasing it seems to be runing fine. However i will keep the washer trick in mind since there are three stacked on the back of the communtator. Tx

Vans procedure on Motion motors

Does the Flaky Motor procedure on Vans website apply to Pittman motors as well as Motion?

Just heard from Vans. "The procedure applies to all flap actuators, Pittman manufactured the motor used on all of these where Motion would be the manufacturer of the ball screw mechanism."

svanarts said:

That sounds exactly like the same failure mode of the earlier motors. I retrofitted for manual flaps for this very reason.

Click to expand...

Loved the manual flaps on my -6, so I did the same with my -7.