Leaderboard

Take it off and clean it real good by scrubbing it with a tooth brush and comet cleanser until it rinses off clean, inside and out. Then get some 1oz fiberglass cloth and cut it into patches a little bigger than the hole. Apply a thin coat of black RTV around the hole, on the outside and stick on a piece of fiberglass. Then apply a little RTV over the patch and work it into the cloth till it is saturated. Massage it until it fits the shape of the boot folds and doesn’t protrude into the boot. Now apply another piece of fiberglass and cover with RTV. Let it cure overnight. If there are any fringes of fiberglass, trim them with a surgical scissors. Then add another thin layer of RTV to make it look good. All RTV work should be done with rubber gloves on. The RTV layers should be as thin as possible while saturating the fiberglass. The RTV will only bond to the boot if the boot is clean and dry.

A few years ago, I found some oil in the bottom of my #4 cylinder and engine oil was fouling that bottom spark plug. I did a ring flush of that cylinder using straight MMO. Worked very well for me. I look hard at that cylinder every annual and it still looks good.

Hi Don, I find the ground situation completely different now that I have a wood wing Mooney. David

Thanks for the diagram, that makes it a little easier. 12, and 13 if you need, to lube the rod ends for the aileron pushrods. 15 to check the end of the gear assist spring attachment and spar. Once in a while, or if leaks are evident, the forward 16 to see if there is any staining inside or evidence of fuel travel along the leading edge. Also whichever 14 is just off the end of the tank (which one depends on the tank configuration), likewise to check for any leaks, condition of the fuel sender gaskets, etc., if issues are evident. For a pre-purchase inspection, or once in a while in an area where corrosion is a concern, the rearward 16 gets you a look at the attachment point of the wing and steel cage and the rear spar caps. This is a common area for corrosion. Corrosion isn't an issue here, so my previous IA only ever wanted 12, 13, and 15 off. I do the same now unless there's reason to do more, like fuel stains or something. Looking in either or both 16s once in a while is not a bad idea, especially if corrossion is a concern.

Just don’t take out the fuel tank ones. It will be self critiquing. They do look different, but it’s possible. I remove them all like @Hanksaid.

Many of mine are riveted in, so I remove all of the ones with screws. I keep one unpainted screw in each; it is loosened, the painted ones are removed, and the panel swivels out of the way. Then I can never mix them up during reinstall, and cuss because the screw holes are not all perfect matches. Seems like I remove about 4 panels per wing.

I use the same delta parameters from peak for TIT as are recommended for EGT. Both are proxies for where peak ICP occurs and TIT correlates directly with EGT. Here's a chart I put together for my Bravo. Its an amalgamation of data from a number of different sources, Savvy and COPA among them, and serves as reference for the edges of the "sort of bad" (orange fin) and bad (red fin) places to be. The granularity of the numbers in the chart may be misleading in that they are general references for adjusting the temperatures and not definite prescribed points to adjust to. I primarily use the 70% line at 30"/2200RPM and TIT ~45d LOP, which well exceeds the orange fin 25d LOP minimum from the chart. To get the red fin boundary numbers, subtract 50 from the ROP numbers and subtract 40 from the LOP numbers. In reality this is way overthought, in my true engineering fashion. In practice I set 30/2200, adjust FF to 13.2, and check that my TIT is <1600. I built the chart to have references should I choose to do some experimenting with different power settings and fuel flows. Cheers, Junkman

Yep, you need one then. You’re pulling unfiltered air right into the fuel servo and through into the engine. There may be some temporary repairs that could work depending on your mechanics comfort level. The lead time for the new one is at least 35 weeks, so you’ll want to call Lasar asap.

Probably easier than finding MEK.

You missed e few ingredients… like pig fat and eye of newt

Naphtha is also another type of mineral spirits. I believe It was used for dry cleaning years ago. I have a gallon in the hangar that is probably nearly 70 years old. It is labeled dry cleaning fluid but the ingredients say Naphtha.

Aircraft Spruce is in corona and they'll deliver to the airport. Probably the best aircraft supply store one can have. I always flew to the corona airport and would get oil and other things needed there. I'd call them in the runup area at John Wayne and they'd be there 3 to 5 minutes after I landed at corona. Probably works with either Compton or 54CL as well.

I assume Mike uses the Xylene to dissolve varnish perhaps left behind by overheated oil. I know a mechanic that swears by flushing with MMO. He claims an FAA mechanic told him they added it to the fuel in DC-3s back when they were used as flight check aircraft to check navaids. MMO is mineral spirits, TCP and a couple of dichlorobenzene isomers. Oh, and red dye and peppermint fragrance. The TCP might reduce lead deposits, but probably only if burned by adding it to the fuel. The dichlorobenzene is likely to dissolve carbon.

I don't have many pics. It's called Lake Riverside Estates. I fly VFR direct and use flight following on the way in so the various C and D airspaces aren't any problem. I'm always below the LAX B. On the way home, I usually don't use flight following, my climb let's me go direct and avoid all the spaces. I'm not IFR rated yet and need to find a CFI for it; rather than using one of the pilot mills.

FWIW, many, many competent career professional GA A&Ps disagree with Busch routinely. He has many good, reasoned opinions, and is an excellent advocate for aircraft owners, but he certainly isn't the last word in aircraft maintenance. Just my dos centavos.

Thanks for the info. I will just sub mineral spirits. I thought that I may recall having read that varsol had naphtha in it. I think that I will maybe modify Busch's mixture by subbing a quart of marvel mystery oil for a quart of the 100w aviation oil. I know that MMO was originally used to scavenge lead in the old cars back in the 30s. Whatever they put in there to scavenge the lead would probably be helpful as I do have some lead deposits, but nothing horrible. I currently have the oil drained and will run the solvent mix through and just let it go through. I plan after that to put the new filter on and complete the oil change. Worst case scenario, is that it does nothing. I can't see it causing any harm provided I don't let it get into the exhaust like he cautions in the procedure.

Vacuum pumps fail a lot more than AIs AI failure is rare Want a good power system for the AI that can't fail in Mooneys? Get it powered by a venturi If you have flying speed you have a good AI Don't talk about ice- you shouldn't be in that kind of weather in a Mooney anyway Which one of 2 AIs has failed ? Try it sometime"-) for real IMC (sim or flight I don't care) In the 121 world 3 AIs is mandated We used the 'best two out of three" syndrome. Had a chief pilot once on a CE 500 who couldn't handle the check ride when they failed his AI. Couldn't disregard his bad instrument and go small third or transfer controls to my side. I'm left wondering what the old Pan Am pilots on the Clipper Ships did around the world when they didn't even have gyro AIs back then? "Here kid, you fly this thing needle ball airspeed" They didn't piss a moan about "partial" panel because that was ALL the panel they had. No such thing partial panel then. AND in some cases they had one needle in the center of the entire panel to look at. Had several what we called "autopilot cripples" in the 121 world. Without it they couldn't get it down inside the fences at the airports- LITERALLY! Always hand flew every third approach by hand to keep sharp. Many down to CAT III mins just in case In the AB 319 I would fly an ILS by hand as I don't think their stability program is all that good. In smooth air it always seemed to wallow around coming down the slot. Autopilot dependence and "Children of the Magenta Line" go hand in hand. (If you don't know of the training film "Children of the Magenta Line" you owe it to yourself to go to utube and watch it. )

I ran mine to a sheet that had other grounds. When I took off the lower panel, there was an aluminum sheet/plate on the roll cage, I just used that. Had a bolt and nut there so did the ground. -Don

Perhaps I didn’t see it. but I don’t recall seeing George Braly say anything negative about 94UL in the beechtalk thread. If anything, he seemed critical of Lycoming attributing the recession to aromatics, which some perceived as a backhanded shot at G100UL, given its higher concentration of aromatics to maintain detonation margins. Perhaps George made the comments on a different forum, but he appeared mindful of his wording in the BT thread, which is to say that that he seems skeptical of Lycoming‘s analysis without supporting data.

An acf-50 spray inside the wings, tail and appropriate fuselage area is pretty easy and relatively cheap. Add that to flying a lot (which lubes engine parts), and keeping it in a hangar and you’ll be fine.

Braly (GAMI) is promoting G100UL, so it's probably wise to interpret everything he does in that context. I met him and heard him speak here earlier this year, and he is not remotely unbiased in my opinion. I now look at what they do in an entirely different light. I suspect other solutions may turn out to be more marketable than G100UL.

I would add GAMI as interested party here as well, no need to seek their expertise: they will now claim that any alternative fuel (from a competitor) on lower octane than their G100UL will cause detonation and bend cylinders all over the place...

I used to respect GAMI opinions on piston engines, however, they seem to have lost the track on this one? they mentioned detonation with UL94 that caused valve problems, I fail to see how this happens in 180hp NA engine like on the one in the Archer? even in their words unless you have 500F CHT with monkey holding mixture you won't get ICP that high even on UL94...I think the only "scientific reason" why they come up with this handy and predictible explanation: well now they sell G100UL right, which obviously has higher Octane rating than UL94, so we expect to hear more and more about detonation problems anytime an alternative fuel is mentioned, as always, it seems once you throw some business interest, you start to get dumb engineers Lycoming are not in the bright spot neither they claim it's the additives, which honestly does not add up unless UL94 used by UND comes from dodgy batch... In the meantime Pettersen STC for auto-fuel allow to run Pipers on EN228 where the only modifications are fuel lines and dual fuel pumps, I can't imagine auto-fuels having higher octane and less aromatics than Swift UL94?

I would not sweat CHTs in the low 400s. I don't think Mike Busch would make the statements he made in this article if he did not have a fair amount of cylinder data. I’m inclined to set CHT targets of about 380 degrees F for Continentals and 400 degrees F for Lycomings. These aren’t not-to-exceed values, they’re just comfortable targets. A good way to think of them is to imagine a CHT gauge with a green arc that tops out at these targets, followed by a yellow arc that extends 20 degrees F higher and terminates with a redline. This is different from the actual markings on your CHT gauge, which probably has a green arc extending all the way up to the manufacturer’s redline of 460 or 500 degrees F, but it’s good mental image to use to ensure maximum engine and cylinder longevity.

This is an NTSB URL, but I am not sure if the link is permanent or associated with my search: https://data.ntsb.gov/carol-repgen/api/Aviation/ReportMain/GenerateNewestReport/103651/pdf I put a copy here in my Dropbox. It may get deleted if I want the space back: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/7ay0mj0nok38y5eu4h8xe/Report_CEN21FA360_103651_4_17_2024-12_10_59-PM.pdf?rlkey=607r00rm871o4wq4akwxjeg4m&dl=0

MooneyMax 2024 dates September 5,6,7,8 Location will be Fredericksburg, Texas at The Hangar Hotel. More details to come shortly.

I think you may have taken some liberty there that you should not have, but your point is well taken. We have become way too autopilot dependent.