Ragsf15e

Honestly, I think your plan is sound. You either need the G500 or the GI275 to drive your autopilot, so that keeps you out of the G5, G3x units. Depending on price, I would definitely consider going with just 2 GI275s. Yes, I know you’ll never complain about having more fancy digital displays, but two of them (both with adhrs and battery backup) provide a nice safe failover solution. On a normal basis your HSI will be exactly the same. If the worse happens and the primary fails in IMC, 90% of my concern is keeping the dirty side down. Losing the HSI data in that case doesn’t bother me. I’m gonna tell ATC I’ve got a problem and I want specific vectors, maybe even no gyro if I’m feeling frisky (yes, I know you’ll still have heading data, but it’s an option to offload navigation if you need to). You still have all the info you need for an approach between the remaining display and your gtn. FWIW, I have 2xG5s and they are really easy to use for attitude, heading, cdi and glideslope all off one display. Two is nice, but one is plenty in the very unlikely situation where the other has failed. As far as using an extra -275 for a mini mfd, that’s nice, but you already have a -750 and -650 showing traffic, weather, etc. those screens are much bigger and work great for that stuff. Anyway, that’s my 2 cents. Not buying an extra -275 saves a lot of 100ll or a little towards that turbo!

When i lived in texas we used icebox (https://switchboxcontrol.com/icebox). I don’t remember it costing as much as advertised but maybe it did. It was real hot there, I needed to keep wifey happy if we were gonna use the airplane. It works fine to cool the cabin during ground ops and departure. I usually turned it off during cruise. After an overnight trip you’ll need more ice to use it on the way home which is sometimes a pain, especially if you used the gel packs on the first flight as they are all warm. My dad uses one in his house and has managed to rust several things near it even though the climate is very dry. I stopped using mine in my airplane.

Yeah fair enough. You don’t want to bring the flaps up immediately after takeoff or if you’re still slow. I guess I do it in your order - gear, airspeed, flaps - because I wait until 100mph in my F to pull up the flaps. I realize there’s some experienced Mooney folks who don’t use takeoff flaps and I’ve tried that recently on longer runways. It seems fine to me, however I have about 3500 hours in the last 20 years doing climbing, gear up, (airspeed), flaps up... so my habit is still to start with them at takeoff setting.

I agree with both Skip and Bob above. Gear up, flaps up, appropriate airspeed. You are near the ground and need to be focused on flying the airplane and looking outside (or inside at ADI/instruments in low weather). You shouldn’t be doing much more until at a safe altitude (whatever you consider that). In my CFI opinion, I wouldn’t mess with the fuel pump, cowl flaps or anything other than gear, flaps, trim until I’m clean, stable and climbing through my predetermined safe altitude where I can accomplish my climb checklist which includes the gear, flaps, fuel pump, etc (some would just be checked because they should already be done).

So the SF install manual required connection to either the battery or master relay. In my 68F those are located next to each other in the “tail” behind the large access panel, so not all the way in the tail... but yeah, you gotta run a wire from there, through the cabin, through the firewall, to the mag. I do not recall what gage wire, but they didn’t supply the wire. you may be thinking of the large wire running from the battery to the starter solenoid?

Yeah that’s about right. We have another thread about the increases this year. We have an insurance guy on here that explains what’s going on in the market in that thread. My $80k hull value did exactly what yours did. I switched from Global to Republic and saved a few $$.

I have a SF on an F with advanced timing and have not had a problem rich or lean of peak. I live in wa state and commonly cruise at 10-12,000’. It does improve performance more LOP than ROP, but other than slightly warmer chts, I haven’t seen anything adverse. In either case, the performance improvement is minimal. I wouldn’t get one just to cruise 2kts faster LOP at 10k, but maint free for TBO is nice. Yes, you’ll pull some interior and feed the power wire through the cockpit alongside your other wire bundles. That was the hardest part of the installation.

Yep the F is fuel injected. It’s just an older version of the J. I can get my FF down that far as well, LOP, maybe around 9,000’ wide open throttle and 2500ish rpm. It’s smooth but it’s not real speedy there. Maybe 135ish kts. I bet you could get the J you fly down that low.

I have a 68F with most of the mods you mentioned. I do like my 201 windshield but since you don’t want that (and it probably doesn’t get you much anyway)... I’d do the Surefly next time a mag needs 500 hour inspection, not before. The SF will then (supposedly) last the rest of your engine life. It won’t add much in the way of speed, maybe a knot or two when LOP at 10,000, but it makes LOP smoother and it may cost less than several 500 hour mag inspections. Additionally, I’d add another G5 which you didn’t mention, but if you’ve got one, definitely go with two. Gives you immediate backup ADI, and provides nice electronic ADI/HSI depending on which one you still have. Also remove the vac pump if you haven’t already. Personally, I’d keep your autopilot as is until it really fails in an expensive way.

You should use an escrow service. It’s common, not expensive and will ensure the deposit is handled appropriately. Id consider using the Saavy pre-buy service, especially as a first time buyer. They will likely save you more than it costs and you’ll have confidence in your new airplane (although never a guarantee). Saavy will help you pick a good shop for the prebuy, coordinate it and advise you through the process.

Nicely done. I hope I remember my early flying adventures with my dad as well as you have!

Can’t wait to see what you figure out! I also have some oil that comes out the sniffle with my fuel drips. I have replaced 3 cylinders and the last one is pretty tired so I assume it’s from that one but not sure. I use more oil than you, maybe 1qt/4 but I think most of it is getting push past the rings. Your plane is newer than mine and some of the drains moved, but just confirm that you’re sure it’s the sniffle drain and not the mech fuel pump drain because oil can definitely come out there. My drains are right next to each other, like attached.

If it’s running 200+ during a Michigan winter, that’s pretty hot! Actually, it’s still probably normal, I was sort of joking because it’s probably pretty cold oat... my F runs around 185 in cruise during winter (Washington state). As @Marauder said though, it’s a noticeable increase in the summer. I see about 200 depending on power setting, altitude, temp, etc. Have you checked your Vernatherm?

Interesting, you still have a chain? Many of the early ones were removed... AD I think about the chain tangling the float?

Interesting. Seemed like a good deal assuming (which is dangerous) you could overhaul the engine without new cam/crank. UL was a bit lower than id like. I may be stuck waiting for an eagle with tks to get 1000ul+.

Yeah, I saw it too... a tks Ovation priced to move. Someday I’ll have tks... I would’ve valued that engine as totally runout as well, but I thought price reflected that, no?

My thought is that fine wires are great and will probably help cover whatever is actually causing the problem... for now.

One thing to consider before throwing parts at it... what are the plugs fouling with? Is it clearly lead deposits? If so, are you really leaned aggressively? Do you have abnormally long time at low power? Or are they possibly wet with oil in the cylinders? Is it all the bottom plugs or only one or two? Just trying to help fully understand the problem before throwing $$ at it.

Go pro mount? Maybe Bluetooth to his phone and he can make sure his gear is down?

I agree, price was excessive, but they also picked it up next day, and brought it back from California to Washington. It was American in California (which probably affected the price). It also had some minor corrosion and required shimming which I thought was pretty standard. Other than the high $$, it came back fast and looked like new.

I have same prop. Mine was worse before my mechanic wanted me to dig into it more... actually, I started get a very fine mist on my windscreen. Only noticeable during cleaning. Streaks were worse than yours. Mine was 14 years, 900 hours. I got an overhaul. Heres the thing, reseal would be best and probably sort it all out. Your seals are likely old and leaking. However, it’s unlikely you’ll find a prop shop that will do a reseal on a 22 year smoh prop. They gonna overhaul it. ~$5k. They may find some corrosion in there too which will lead to overhaul. When is your annual due? You might be able to wait that long? It’s down a couple weeks by the time you R&R, shipping, etc. Standard disclaimer, only my experience, I’m not a prop guy. But we have one with a great shop... @Cody Stallings

Yes definitely, it will be flooded if you do this which is funny because the flooded start technique appears right after it and mirrors what you said about flooded start.

Skip I have to apologize, Mooney did provide hot and flooded start guidance in the manual, it’s just not the way people normally get successful hot starts. The manual has the pilot prime for a hot start to “flush the fuel lines with cool fuel” and then quickly crank. It says to crank quickly to avoid the fuel percolating. I have not had success with this technique. By not priming, I’ve had easy hot starts even several hours after shutdown. Their flooded technique is fine.

I guess from this (above) I took it to mean follow the poh on both hot and cold. My 1968 POH doesn’t differentiate and “Engine Start” primes with the fuel pump. So the poh works great for cold but if you follow it for hot start you’re likely flooded, but sometimes not quite and it’s not a good place.

Ive got 2 four year olds in the backseat, I’ll gladly take the 3-4 minutes!!