Gear Doors Don't Retract on 66 337A

Gear Doors Not Closing on a 1966 337A front engine gear pump only. Here's the scenario.

Some of the details may be irrelevant, but I'm going to give the long boring version in case someone sees a relevant pattern.

Thursday, start up, call clearance, and my primary com radio starts to get some static, blinks a couple of times and then dies. I turn it off, back on, and it works fine for another 5-10 minutes. Exact same thing happens again, but this time, radio is dead.

I call a shop, and have them get me a loaner, which I swap out on Friday. Radio works fine!

On my way home (about 1 hour into a 4 hour flight) I scan everything and notice that the circuit breaker for the rear "generator" had popped (this had to happen in flight because I checked it during run up and it had not popped). I looked at everything else, and the front alternator had obviously pulled its weight nicely, everything electrical read normal. Reset it, and it never popped again.

About another hour into the flight, I noticed that my yellow gear up indicator blinked off. I didn't think too much about it because I looked outside and doors and gear were still up, so I assumed a faulty bulb (and no, I didn't switch it out with another bulb from my marker beacons or the green light at that time . . . but it did cross my mind) and kept flying.

Got home, on downwind, put the gear lever to down position, and got a visual on the gear, but the green light won't come on nor will the gear handle go to the neutral position, and I can see in my mirrors that the gear doors are stuck open. Tower wanted me to do a fly by so they could take a closer look. I did, they confirmed that the gear looked fully extended, but the doors were wide open. I flew a few miles out, and tried hand pumping the doors closed. I did this with the handle in the full down position, and then tried it with the handle in the neutral position. Then I turned my master off (not the alternators however) and tried it again, no luck!

I tried to recycle the gear several times, but everytime I did, even in the up position, the gear would fully retract but the gear doors would not shut. Tried pumping again with the handle in both positions, and it didn't work.

Finally, I went back, and landed without incident. And . . . by the way, I was one of those folks that once I knew I had the 5100' runway made with relatively calm winds, I killed my front engine and had the prop stop horizontal to make sure that if the nose gear collapsed, I wasn't going to have a prop strike on the front engine (it ain't tough to do on these planes - but I know I'll get criticism anyway). Everything was fine. Taxied over to the hangar on the rear engine, shut everything down and turn everything off, then turned the master switch back on, and manually pumped up the gear doors easily, and the green light came on instantly after the doors were closed. And yes, I tested the yellow light, and it also worked.

The thing that I didn't do, which I wish I had done in hindsight, was to kick some hard rudder back and forth and then do some porpoising to see if I could have "unstuck" or moved whatever wire, switch or whatever it was to a happier position.

Any thoughts on what gremlin may be lurking in my landing gear doors? To me, it sounds electrical, thus the whole diatribe on the electrical events of the day.

Thanks,

Keven
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