captainglen

Yes that is your air oil separator and if oil is comong down the vent line the usual cause is excessive blow by. When cylinders are new you really do not need a separator but as they age blow by increases and the air oil separator begins it's work. As cylinders pass middle age the flow increases to the point that small beads of oil will flow past the seeparator and become visible on the breather line eventually showing up on the belly. As compression decreases blow by increases. By the time your lowest cylinder fails a compression test you are already having significant bypass to the separator.

Your wife must be one hell of a woman, mine is a beauty, 20 years younger than I am and I might give up a Cessna for her as long as it is not a 210 but not a Mooney. To me there are only two things that bring real thrills into your life, a great woman and a great airplane; my greatest nightmare would be to have to choose between the two. My woman has mixed feelings about our mooney but took a lot more pride in it once I named it after her.

Drag is related only to the total whetted surface area of the tail not the angle of the leading edge and the Mooney tail is relatively small for the airframe size. What is critical in the mooney is that the entire tail is hinged at the bottom for pitch trim, therfore the upper sliding seal has the most potential for parasitic drag and also for wear. The tail moves verry little at the bottom during trim but the top moves a lot more and the vertical angle of the leading edge means there is better seal with less stress on the seal. One thing to note is the tail is vertical when the trim is in the landing position but it actually slopes back a bit when the airplane is trimmed for cruise flight. On the ramp trim your airplane to half way between the takeoff mark and full nose dawn and take another look!

You are right about getting the CHT's right, notice the red line above and below the green arc on the factory CHT indicator. The piston/cylinder assemblies are designed to opperate in a narrow temprature range. Too low and the piston is too small, leakage and skirt chafing occurs. Too hot and friction increases and ring galling could occur. You were also right to check the baffeling although baffeling problems usually result in high CHT's. At suspect could be the accuracy of the indication system and a rapid check after shutdown with an laser infra-red thermometer could resolve this. Also tyhe rig to the cowl flaps could be suspect as well.

Wow David you are a valuable resource!

I would not wory about theextra features on the old piston but you are right about the pitting. The reconditioned piston does not look smmoth at all at least on the one side. It will probably be all right but I would see about exchanging it for a better one. The old cylinder is consistantant with your observed symproms but there is another concern and that is that the ring galling on the old cylinder is due to the fact it was overheated. The cooling baffle rubber seals need to be checked to make sure that cooling air is not bypassing that jug allowing it to get hotter than the others.

Parker's comment may be on to the root cause. Many propellers especially the Hartzel use oil pressure to move the blades to the high speed position which work against counderweights that use centrifugal force to move the blades to the low speed position. If the engine oil pressure is not sufficient to allow the governor to provide full RPM. There is also the governor itself but there is also the turbo bearings and the expansion turbine of the turbocharger. To adjudicate the turbo a test run can be made with the waste gate valve lockwired in the full open (bypass) position. If the performance increases the turbocharger must be replaced. 36" is actually quite significant power and actually represents at least 6" of boost at sea level so I really do not suspect your turbo, you are producing a lot of power. The RPM is critical and at 2500 RPM you will not be able to transfer that power to the air for a proper full power takeoff. Swollen prop piston packing, prop governor or engine oil pump.

First a note of explanation: a manifold pressure gague is an absolute pressure gague. What this means is that it is an uncorrected barometer connected to your intake manifold so with the engine not running it indicates uncorrected field pressure. Those among us living at or near sea level can look at the gague and expect it to read the same as the Kolsman window when the altimeter is set to field elevation. Those of us living at significant altitudes above sea level look at the gague and ponder if what we are seeing is right. My field is at 2,400' and my gague reads 27.4" with the local altimeter (corrected barometer) at 29.85", Perhaps a flight to a sea level field might resolve any insecurity but there is another way. The website http://www.csgnetwork.com/barcorrecthcalc.html has a handy calculator. You just enter your field elevation and current altimeter setting in the top column and read the uncorrected mercury column and correction factor at the bottom. For my field elevation the correction turned out to be 2.5" which corresponds to 29.8" within .05" of where it should be. Now I have confidence in the instrument without having to go to sea level to check it. This same calculator can give you the maximum theoretical full throttle manifold pressure for any cruise altitude and within 1/4" the power you would achieve. A bit helpful when trying to calculate crise performance for altitudes that fall between the charts in the POH. As an Airframe/Powerplant mechanic with extensive experience in both large jet transport and general aviation aircraft as well as avionics I will be writing other blogs trying to take some of the mystery out of small aircraft systems. If anyone has questions on or suguestions for articles, please comment.

I would point out that there will be a significant span of time till the next compression check and that removing a bit of carbon might only temporarily raise compression; It is always best to replace the "jug". Some people shy away from from a single cylinder replacement in favor of a TOH but I have always found a single jug to be a good solution; quick easy and fairly cheap. It is common for pilots who make descents at verry low power to wear out front cylinders early from shock cooling while some aircraft accumulate heat in the cowlings and wear out back cylinders early. A cylinder assembly consists of the cylinder, the valves and usually the rockers. It wil have a new piston with rings already inserted into the cylinder with just enough skirt protruding to insert the floating wrist pin. The numbers are good buy the plane and do a "jug".

Use extreme caution in loading because the effects of opperation aft of Max aft C.G. limit are incidious and catastrophic. The bottom line is that the elevator will not be effective in the pitch down direction if a stall were to occur at low speed. This means that the only means left to break the stall would be a sharp increase in engine power which may be insufficient or take too long. I tend to keep as a rule no more than one adult and one child in the back but anytime there is more than just one adult in the back do a proper weight and balance. If you have to quibble over a few inches of arm as to where the exact center of the back seat or bagage compartment is to stay in envelope, don't! Your training and instincts in stall recovery are based on predictable stall performance and you could get away with being out of envelope for years. Get cut off in the pattern after having turned base leg and have to maneuver with low altitude, low speed or both and see what happens next.

Coming down from altitude do not muse over heart rates below 100 as long as oxygen saturations are above 90 preferably above 95. As other users point heart rate increases to increase oxygenation through the lungs. I would worry more about your wife's oxygen sat in the 80s. Most of us pilots tend to be among the group you would call older americans and it just might be time to carry a bit of oxygen along for longer trips and trips at higher altitudes. The really good thing is that you carry a pulse-ox unit and use it so that nasty hypoxia will not sneak up on you without you knowing. I have one, I will carry it and I will use it just after each tank change as part of my routine.

I was looking at my ailerons (1962 M20C Mark 21) and mine are drooped 2 degrees from the flaps. The book says 0 degrees to 2 degrees below the flaps but my question is on the effect on efficiency. My mooney is fast and seems efficient but would I be better off if the ailerons were set nearer to zero.

As an A&P and avionic mechanic I would have no problem signing off a panel mod that does not require wiring changes with only a minor inspection. Of course any addition of equipment or changes to the basic wiring will require both servicable tags and a 337 asuming the equipment is TSO. If equipment is not TSO a STC must be files as justification to install the equipment. Under these circumstances would perform fairly extensive inspection of pilot accomplished work along with opperational testing, compliance to MFG install manual (many can be obtained On-Line) and compliance to AC-43-13 standard practices with regard to bundeling, routing and clamping of wires..