Vance Harral

The official definition of "bad" is found in the service manual. To quote from that manual, "Slow-to-heavy seeps occurring in open areas, such as wing surfaces exposed to the airstream, are leaks which do not constitute a flight hazard and and need not be repaired prior to flight, providing the condition causing the leak cannot result in a leak of greater intensity during flight." So if your "very bad" leak is on the wing surface or in the gear well, and isn't causing a stain of greater than 4 inches in diameter, you have some time to consider your options while continuing to fly the airplane. That's the case with most leaks. If you actually have a running leak as shown below, or fuel is pooling and/or leaking down into the belly of the fuselage, a more urgent repair is necessary. We've had both conditions on our airplane. Over the course of 17 years of ownership, we've had the fuel tanks patched three times, at a cost of $1-2K each time. Only one of those was an urgent situation. Fortunately in that case, the leak was on the outboard side of the tank. We were able to drain that tank down below the level of the leak, keep the other tank full, and fly to the nearest MSC for a patch.

Parker is the expert, but in my experience as a CFI, there is no universal answer for this - it depends on the particular insurance company and the particular time you ask them. Working with clients for checkouts, I've had one company tell me the M20J and everything prior to it are equivalent, and another insist each of M20/M20A/M20B/M20C/M20D/M20E/M20F/M20G/M20J are all different. Similarly, some insurers group all turbocharged Mooneys together, others treat M20K/M20M/M20R/M20S/M20TN as unique animals. Any given insurer may change their mind on this from year to year. Bottom line, you have to call and ask.

You already figured out the simplest answer. Push the button when making a turn, release it when the turn is done.

It'd be a shame to not make use of a functioning wing leveler just because the disconnect mechanism isn't working. When you say the wing leveler "would not turn off", I assume you're talking about the red, yoke-mounted PC defeat switch? If so, in the mid-70s vintage Mooneys that is an electrical switch which connects to a vacuum solenoid behind the instrument panel, that opens the PC system to ambient air. It's pretty straightforward to test, might be as simple as a broken wire that just needs to be reconnected. If the yoke-mounted switch itself is bad, it's not too awful to replace, and it's a standard electrical switch that can be obtained from Mouser, Digikey, etc. If the vacuum solenoid is bad, replacements are hard to come by, but they can be gray-market overhauled. Its just a solenoid attached to a Schrader valve.

While Stratoflex may be the gold standard, I'm unaware of any guidance or regulation which prohibits the use of clear polyethylene tubing in the vacuum system. Almost all the tubing in our vacuum system is clear polyethylene, some of it installed by multiple shops I trust. That said, polyethylene tubing doesn't turn yellow overnight, and the hoses in your pic look significantly yellowed. When poly tubing gets old, it both turns yellow, and also gets brittle, possibly introducing debris into the system. So even though you've solved your original problem, I'd recommend replacing that tubing next time you're in there. If it were me, I'd just replace it with fresh poly tubing, rather than the more expensive Stratoflex.

CA comes in various viscosity formulations. Suggest you acquire some "thick" CA for this task, e.g. https://www.amazon.com/ZAP-Slo-Thick-CA-Glue/dp/B00V6DOYBG. Much less likely to run down out of the cap into the switch.

Yep, that's the one. It looks slightly different in models with electric flaps, which is why I didn't post a picture from my airplane. But the linkage is similar in both electric and hydraulic flap airplanes, with roughly the same (low) probability of an asymmetric failure.

That torque tube doesn't connect directly to the flaps. Arms are welded to the torque tube on each side, and those arms drive a pair of connected rod ends, which in turn drive the flap. See screenshot of parts diagram from the IPC below. Among other reasons for this design, it allows the flaps to be adjusted independently by turning the rod ends. Mooneys are certainly less susceptible to asymmetric flap deployment than some other models, and I'm not aware of any Mooney accident reports associated with asymmetric flaps. But I count four welds/linkage points between the torque tube and the flap on each side, the failure of any one of which would result in that side's flap hanging loose in the breeze.

I think I've done a poor job of communicating here, let me try again. For vintage Mooneys, it's my understanding that the Weight and Balance Record legally has to be carried in the airplane, along with the Operators Manual. The idea is that you're supposed to be able to run a W&B check using only the documents in the airplane. Accordingly, in the unlikely-but-theoretical case of a ramp check, you could catch a violation for not having the Weight and Balance Record document in your vintage Mooney. Yes, the odds of such a violation actually happening are astronomical - we're just talking theory here. Whether you use that document in your own W&B computations is entirely up to you, particularly in the modern world of EFBs. There are certainly other places to get the data and/or build an EFB W&B model. I don't think there is any reasonable interpretation of the regulations which would require a vintage Mooney pilot to perform W&B computations using only the smudged, micro-size-font graphs in the 50-year-old Weight and Balance Record. My CFI follow-up comment on this is, just make sure you understand the provenance of your W&B tool(s). In a training or flight review situation, I'd be really comfortable with a pilot who showed me a W&B using arms from the M20F (or G or J or whatever) TCDS entry. Also really comfortable with a W&B in Foreflight where the pilot says, "I created this W&B model in Foreflight using information in the TCDS/Weight and Balance Record"; or "I downloaded this model and checked it against the documents for my airplane". I'm a lot less comfortable when a pilot says, "I do my W&B in Foreflight", with no further explanation. Maybe this is less of an issue with Mooneys, but my worldview is biased by flocks of renter airmen who Google "Cessna 172" on the internet to get operating documents, and aren't yet skilled enough to understand the differences between a 1956 straight tail, fastback 172 (no trailing alphabetic character on that model), a post-2000 Cessna 172S, and everything in-between (including the ubiquitous 180hp aftermarket STCs). For example, not to pick on JWJR, but the specific language he uses to ask if Foreflight is "legal" makes my Spidey Sense tingle. Setting aside the question of FAA violations, what I really want to know is, where did he get the Foreflight model he's using, and how certain is he that it applies to the specific model of Mooney he flies? Foreflight comes pre-loaded with W&B models for common aircraft, but it would be easy for someone to accidentally choose the wrong model number of the correct type. More importantly, Foreflight explicitly permits individual users to e-mail W&B models directly amongst themselves; so sometimes the model being used is just from "some guy on the internet". Any of you who frequent various aviation forums will see this frequently. "Hey, anyone got a Foreflight W&B model for a BugSmasher 2000?" Again, not trying to pick on JWJR here - my guess is he's done the appropriate due diligence but didn't want to get into a sideband conversation about it. In summary, I think automated W&B tools like Foreflight, Excel spreadsheets, etc. are all great; and that it's completely "legal" to use them. But I expect pilots to have a rock-solid story about the provenance of the underlying data when I ask them about garbage-in-garbage-out risk. I can't speak for the FAA, but my guess is they take the same view.

Prior to some point in the model history (not sure when, but guessing all models before the M20J), W&B information was in a separate document called the "Weight and Balance Record". That's what I posted above. The "POH" for older model Mooneys is actually titled "Operator's Manual". You need both of these documents in the airplane to be compliant with the M20 TCDS. If you have only the Operators Manual, but not the Weight and Balance Record, the airplane is technically unairworthy. Note that having just a single sheet that records the empty weight and moment does not meet the requirement to have the Weight and Balance Record onboard. The latter document is the only place you'll find the graphs you need to compute the moments for passengers, luggage, etc.

Attached are a couple of files, though I'm not sure they're going to be that helpful to you. The first is a legible scan of the M20F "Weight and Balance Handbook". This generic document shows arms and stations for various standard and optional equipment, in that era. The second is a somewhat less legible scan of the actual weight and balance record for 1976 M20F S/N 22-1375 as it left the factory. It's a copy of the "Weight and Balance Handbook" with actual data for this particular serial number. Equipped with both documents, you can tease out the details of this particular airplane. The stumbling block is that if you look closely, equipment was installed in S/N 22-1375 at the factory, which is not in the list of optional equipment found in the generic "Weight and Balance Handbook". For example, there is no entry in the generic document for an "Alert 50 -- ELT", but there is an entry in the S/N 22-1375 original weight and balance record for that device. The original weight and balance record for your airplane almost certainly had similar equipment: things for which the factory knew the W&B info, but which is not listed in the generic W&B document. I suppose it's possible someone can send you an original W&B for an airplane that just happened to be identically equipped to your airplane, but that's probably a long shot. No harm in asking, though. weight_and_balance_record.pdf weight_and_balance_handbook.pdf

PM sent.

While one anecdote is not data, let me offer you some comfort. We bought our partnership Mooney in 2004. At the time it had about 900 hours on a 1991 field overhaul, so 13 YEARS prior! And not a name-brand overhaul, ours was a field overhaul at a no-longer-in-business shop in California, after a gear-up landing and prop strike. It's now 2021, engine is at 2200 hours and 30 years since that 1991 overhaul, and still running strong. Oil changes 3x/year at 30-40 hours on the oil, we always cut the filter and pull the pickup screen (a pain, but I'm getting good at it), and borescope the cylinders. There is some light scuffing on the cylinder walls, and compressions are down to low 70s, but other than some annoying oil seeps at the pan gasket and the spine, no issues. We don't use Camguard or do anything else fancy, but we do fly it regularly (75-100 hours/year), and we benefit from a dry climate. Near as I can tell, any IO-360 that's flown regularly seems to do well in the longevity department.

Yeah, at this point I wish we had the catch. The IPC page you posted lists two entries for item #85, which is the knob. The first is P/N 640282-007 for effectivity note "X" (see below), which is presumably the knob with the catch. The second is P/N #278 for effectivity note "XI", which is the smooth knob on our airplane.

No catch/button/friction lock on our airplane. Per the IPC, later models had a different knob, which is simple and smooth, see attached photo. This was taken before the adjustment, and you can see about 1/2" of exposed cable sheath with the knob pushed as far forward as it will go.

That's a $10,000 solution to a $10 problem. Requires a new cowl, new intake plumbing, etc. I'd rather just silicone the door shut, legalities aside. I'm aware the J model had essentially zero ram-air benefit, but that's not true of older models like ours. Opening ram air not only bypasses the air filter, but also achieves a straight shot into the fuel servo vs. the windy turns through the normal induction path through the filter. Good for somewhere between 1/2" and 1" of MP, and a few knots, depending on who you believe. I don't particularly care about it, as it doesn't produce a meaningful difference in cruise speed or climb rate IMO. But I'm the kinda guy that wants everything that's installed on the airplane to actually work as designed.

Resurrecting this old thread because we watched an Elvira Mistress of the Dark send-up last night with the feature being I Eat Your Skin. Camp zombie flick. The airplane that plays a part in the plot is a Vintage Mooney, looks like an M20C model to me. It meets a sad demise when a zombie carrying a box of explosives walks into the spinning prop and blows everything up!

1976 M20F with factory ram air. Prior to last year's annual, we had an issue where the ram air warning light was illuminating, because the cable sheath that is supposed to trip the associated microswitch only just barely engaged when the control knob was pushed full forward to close the door. The door itself was staying sealed, but after just a few minutes of flying and the tiniest amount of vibration, the cable sheath would move a hundredth of an inch or so, slide off the microswitch, and set off the warning. Those of you who've fiddled with this system know the position of the microswitch is adjustable. But it had already been adjusted as far aft as possible, so fixing the problem required something other than re-positioning the microswitch. During debug at the annual, we noticed that the ram air knob was a good 1/2" or so aft of the panel when pushed forward to the limit of travel. Seeing an obvious fix, we disconnected the other end of the cable in the engine compartment where it's attached to the ram air door actuator, slid it forward a little less than 1/2", and re-attached. Voila! plenty of travel of the cable sheath to actuate the ram air warning microswitch when closed, and the ram air knob actually lined up with the cowl flap knob when both were closed to boot. Awesome! "While we were in there", we cleaned and lubricated the ram air door actuator mechanism (it's quite the Rube Goldberg apparatus). Opening the ram air door had required significant force and felt "gummy", but with appropriate cleaning and lubrication, everything worked the way it seemed like it was supposed to. No good deed goes unpunished, I guess. Over the last couple of months, we're having an increasingly occurring problem where the ram air door eases open in flight. This time, it's definitely the door opening that's the issue - landing without trying to fix the warning and inspecting the cowl reveals the ram air door to be slightly open, with the gap closing when the ram air control knob is pushed forward. It's gotten bad enough now that at max cruise speed, you can push the knob full forward, and watch it slide back about 1/2 inch all by itself over a period of just a couple of seconds. It's hard to believe the cable adjustment we made would cause this, though I guess anything's possible. Rather than that, my guess is that the ram air actuator mechanism has some sort of over-center apparatus which is supposed to hold the ram air door closed against air pressure, and ours is mal-adjusted; but that adjustment problem was obscured by the entire mechanism being gummy prior to working on it. Guessing that now that everything is lubricated, it's easier for the force of air hitting the door to push it open. Anyone been through this and care to offer tips and/or pictures?

I used to give this advice too, but then learned a painful lesson that just because pulling the field breaker changes the nature of the noise, that doesn't meant the problem is in the charging system. When we were chasing our loose voice annunciator ground problem, pulling the field breaker did change the nature of the noise, even though the alternator, diode bridge, and voltage regulator were not the cause of the problem. We wasted time and dollars removing, overhauling, and re-installing the alternator - which requires removing the lower cowl and is therefore a giant PITA - to no avail. The problem remained, and even exhibited the same behavior of getting quieter and sometimes going away when the field breaker was pulled. Only after finding and tightening the loose ground connection was the problem resolved.

We've twice traced problems like this to loose ground connections on devices associated with audio (once it was a voice annunciator, another time a headset jack). But only after chasing other hypothesis for weeks/months. At the time, we too thought the problems only started after "warming up". Turned out to have nothing to do with actual heat, and everything to do with it being worse once airborne and flying even in the lightest of turbulence and G loads. Before you go to the shop, suggest you first wiggle all the headset jacks in the airplane to see if you can induce the problem, as well as any other audio devices you can lay hands on (re-seat radios in the stack, look under the panel and under the glare shield for loose grounds, etc.)

Correct, this type of actuator does not have the no-back-spring clutch problem. It has a different problem, which is internal gears that slowly wear over time, and are subject to SB M20-190B inspections. No chance your actuator had 40:1 gears in the mid-70s. Your 5-6 second retract time is somewhat indicative of 20:1 gears, but actual retract time varies, because it's a function of both the gear ratio, and the overall health of your electrical system and wiring. A better indicator is how many cranks of the emergency extension system are required to move the gear from fully up to fully down. It'll be about 75 revolutions with the 20:1 gears, about 150 revolutions with the 40:1 gears. I've never figured out a practical way to inject new grease into the gear set without removing it from the airplane. People speak of removing two of the four bolts from the gear train housing, and squirting grease in one until it comes out the other. But the passage through the gears is very narrow, and it requires extremely high pressure to do this - higher than I've ever been able to achieve with a simple cone nozzle on a grease gun, even with the actuator out of the airplane. Instead, I only grease the mechanism when the actuator is removed from the airplane and on the bench (which you do periodically anyway per the M20-190B inspection). The technique I use exploits the fact that in addition to the 4 AN bolts holding the mechanism together, there is a large, hex-head end cap which can be removed to see the pinion gear. I open everything up, manually pack grease in as best as I can, install three of the four bolts, then pack extra grease into the hole where the end cap is located. As the end cap is screwed back in place, it provides high pressure that squeezes grease through the gears and out the 4th AN bolt hole which I leave open. Then, you must dig enough grease out of the remaining AN bolt hole to make room for the final bolt before installing it. If you don't do this, the bolt will experience hydraulic lock when you're tightening it, and strip (ask me how I know!) We bought the airplane in 2004 with 1690 hours on the airframe, and the original 20:1 gears in the actuator. On the first M20-190B inspection, we found the gear set worn, but within limits. The actuator failed the M20-190B inspection (greater than 1/2 tooth backlash) in 2009, with 2200 hours on the airframe. At that time, we sent the actuator to LASAR, and they both overhauled the electric motor (new brushes mainly), and installed the 40:1 gear set. Since that time, we've observed some light wear on the 40:1 set, but nowhere near needing replacement. Now at 3200 hours and I do not expect to have to replace the 40:1 gears in my lifetime. Note that our airplane is primarily flown locally, and probably sees 1-2 gear cycles every hour, as opposed to cross-country machines that might only see one gear cycle every 2-3 hours.

If you'll give credit for a near sibling, the B-5 autopilot in our airplane was installed at the factory, and is still operational in all three axes today. Not without some servicing over the years, though. Servo cans, boots, and tubing are straightforward to understand, we've replaced with new or overhauled parts from Brittain when they were still in business. We also had the magnetometer in the tail and the complex rotary switch in the head unit overhauled by Brittain, some dozen years ago when they were still in business. The next time any of these complex components give up the ghost, I don't think there will be any legal way to repair them. Brittain has technically been "in hibernation" since the senior family technician passed on and they lost their repair station license. Another family member supposedly found a buyer and had hopes of making the company a going concern again. But it's been years since there was any news on that front, and I think it's extremely unlikely they'll ever come back to being able to provide parts and/or support. I'm bummed about that, because Jerry and CiCi were very good to us on support for a number of years. But one has to be realistic.

That is an LA11C2114 actuator made by ITT, same vintage as in our 1976 M20F. The ITT actuators (red anodized) replaced the older Dukes actuator (blue anodized) when the latter became persona non-grata. But the initial ITT LA11C2110 had the same issues as the Dukes, and was replaced by the LA11C2114. Unclear from your log book entry if your replacement was a Dukes -> ITT swap, or an LA11C2110 -> LA11C2114 swap. The LA11C2114 is an interesting animal. It's not actually called out by part number in Service Bulletin M20-190B, and AD 75-04-09 and AD 75-23-04 don't refer to it either. I think, technically, the gear inspections don't apply to this specific actuator. But we do 'em anyway, as all these actuators have the same internal gear set, and are subject to the problems that M20-190B covers.

I just exchanged a few text messages with Paul, and can assure everyone here he's alive and well. I know the concern is genuine, but as many of us do from time to time, Paul's just finding an extended break away from the online lifestyle to be, and I quote, "refreshing". I'm sure he appreciates the concern.

The thin Teflon tape from Aircraft Spruce has worked well for us. It's quite expensive compared to UHMW, though, so like many CBs, we tried the UHMW tape from Amazon instead. It works OK, but I wouldn't recommend it for airplanes that are actually pretty (ours is a workhorse). What we've found over time is that the Amazon stuff oxidizes, turns yellow, and (most importantly), the adhesive hardens and leaves a very tough residue behind when the tape skin eventually peels off. I haven't found any solvent that takes this hardened adhesive off, without also taking off the paint underneath it. I don't know if this is characteristic of UHMW tape in general, or a specific problem with the Amazon stuff, but I'd recommend caution. If you do use the UHMW tape, I'd recommend replacing it frequently before it oxidizes too badly. That eats up some of the savings.