Lak-17a landing gear problem

At the suggestion of my A&P and in case any owners are not part of the
Lak-17 group on Yahoo! where it's already posted, I'm sending this to
the entire group:

All:

On Sunday (June 20), I experienced a landing gear malfunction. While
extending the gear before landing, the nub which fits into the locking
slot popped out from under the plate at which point the gear would
neither extend or retract fully. I was able to retreat to 6,000 agl
in order to fuss with it and finally got it to pop back in with the
aid of my house key.


Several observations:

1. It takes virtually no force to get it to pop out.
2. It won't pop back in unless you displace the plate inboard,
something requiring at least two hands and not easy to do in the
pattern.
3. The "cutout" in the gear locking plate won't permit you to extend
(or lock) the gear fully with the nub displaced.

On the ground, we found that if the gear is left just short of
extended (handle just aft of the start of the "cutout" in the plate,
pushing on the overcenter on the gear will cause it to pop out WITHOUT
TOUCHING THE HANDLE. (note: this may be unique to mine because of
the plating I scraped off while trying to cycle the gear during this
incident.)

Conclusions:

1. Rotate the handle up and inboard when cycling the gear and keep it
there. DON'T LET THE NUB SLIDE AGAINST THE PLATE!

2. Don't let go of the handle unless the nub is in the locking slot
at either end of it's travel.

3. It takes virtually no effort to pop the nub out from behind the
plate; getting it back in is a whole other story!

I've decided to change my landing checklist (TOWARD) by moving the "R"
(retracts) closer to the front, because of this incident and because,
on reflection, it makes little sense to set up the approach airspeed
(A) before you extend speed changing devices like the wheel and flaps.

Questions:

Has anyone else had this experience? My SN is 120. Has there been
any change in this mechanism, either prior to or after mine? Are
there any suggestions for a modification which would prevent this?
The only thing I can think of is to replace the plate with another
that's the same except for the cutout, thereby capturing the nub.

Raphael Warshaw
1LK