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My thanks to Dale and everyone else for great info and reassurance. I'll go ahead and pop the plastic cap off the landing leg this afternoon to see if I can find anything wrong--hope I don't find any metal filings!!
One new development since I posted this thread Friday night. When I tried to raise the landing gear Saturday morning, the street-side leg came up but the curb-side leg did not. OUCH!! Looked around the front compartment and found that the one inch shear bolt next to the motor had sheared off. I was able to replace it with a spare I had on hand (thanks to John Kohl's warning months ago about carrying spares), and after that the landing gear has worked smoothly with no signs of distress.
So now for the chicken and egg dilemna. Were the problems I was experiencing Friday night due to a failing shear bolt that had not yet worked it's way out? Or was the shear bolt failure a consequence of some other problem? At least I believe the shear bolt was the probable cause of the vibration I was seeing in the motor--I suspect the head of the shear bolt was starting to work its way out and banging against the motor housing as the square bar was rotating. Just sorry I didn't immediately spot the bolt starting to work its way loose.
But if a failing shear bolt was the cause of the problems I was experiencing, what caused it to shear in the first place?
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