pkellercfii

As discussed in the engine monitors board, here, I spent last summer doing an owner-assisted annual which featured replacement of an old JPI EDM-800 with an EDM-900. After we thought we were done & ready to fly, in performing the post-maintenance engine runs we ran into a nasty oil leak from the base of the oil cooler. The oil cooler had been removed during this annual to facilitate the replacement of the OEM oil temperature sender with the JPI oil temperature probe. It turned out that the oil leak was the result of a change to the oil cooler gasket. That change took place sometime between when the engine was overhauled, in 2009-2010, and now. Continental made the gasket thinner. In the attached picture, the old gasket, the all-red, slightly torn up gasket on the left, is shown alongside a new gasket, and a dime for size & thickness reference. For most of the oil cooler attachment screws, the thinner gasket isn't a problem. Eight of the nine screw holes which secure the oil cooler to the engine crankcase are through holes with no bottoms for the oil cooler screws to bottom out on. The middle bottom screw hole, though, is different--it does have a bottom. As a result, the machine screw at that location was bottoming out in the hole, rather than on the oil cooler's base attachment flange. That created our oil leak. Our solution was to replace the single thin washer called for in the Continental IPC with two thick washers. That still left about seven or eight threads in the screw engaged in the crankcase fitting that the oil cooler is attached to. It also corrected the oil leak problem. Nasty "gocha" which someone pulling any bolt-on, gasketed oil cooler might want to know about. --Paul Keller 89K @ KTTA

It’s a pain, but I’ve told by what should be a knowledgeable source, Greg Lehman at Advanced Aircraft Services at KTTD, that the trick is to remove the #2 alternator and the left mag, and then you can get the #1 alt out fairly easily. —Paul Keller

Your shop both didn’t follow the Mooney service manual (MSM) procedure for weighing the aircraft & determining the resultant CG, and even for the lazy shortcut they took for finding the CG, they used the wrong arm distances. If I take your wheel weights & combine them with my airframe undercarriage distance measurements, then, using the proper MSM procedure for determining CG, I get 40.86” for your empty CG. That’s still mighty far forward, but, for some typical W&B cases I ran, still within the envelope. My Mooney is an ‘89 252, and so not much different from a 231. The undercarriage distance measurements shouldn’t vary much between airframes. You need to find an A&P who will at least recalculate your empty CG correctly. Decide for yourself if you want reuse the weights measured by a shop where the personnel apparently flunked out of elementary school and thus can’t read a service manual. The procedure for determining empty CG from the individual wheel weights & undercarriage distances is on p. 8-00-01 of the M20K service manual. —Paul Keller

Last I heard, which was at least three years ago, from my AME at the time, Canada is not accepting basic med. That’s not a point I’d take any chances on if I were going to fly into Canada. I’m still maintaining my FAA 3rd class for occasional climbs into the flight levels, and, possibly, future international travel. —Paul Keller

Agree with Don Muncy that a reasonably skilled hangar elf can readjust fuel cap tension to something more reasonable. It’s just a matter of loosening the nut at the bottom of the cap. You’ll need to replace the cotter pin on the nut afterwards. After purchasing my Mooney I had the same problem with the fuel caps being set too tight. A plastic bicycle tire lever will do a good job of unsecuring excessively tight fuel caps without marring the paint. I think I still keep one of those levers in my on-board tool kit. —Paul Keller

Thanks for the replies. The background behind this project is that it's a part of an owner-assisted annual. A few hours after posting this question, the IA I'm working and I had a discussion on this topic, and we reached the same conclusion that Paul Kortopates suggested--it needs to go into the OEM oil temp sender location, IAW the engine type certificate. As mentioned above, that's not an easy location to get at. As sometimes happens in aircraft maintenance, some disassembly required. I spent a good part of my Saturday pulling the baffling piece off the above location, along with the oil cooler. Although pulling the oil cooler was perhaps not completely necessary, pulling the oil cooler wasn't real difficult, and it did make the process easier. Trashed a $10 oil cooler gasket in the process, but Spruce has those in stock, so that's not a big deal. Picture of the installed JPI oil temp probe, with oil cooler removed, is below. The screwdriver is pointing at the newly-installed JPI sensor. If anyone has to pull an oil temperature sender from around the oil cooler base of a TSIO-360, it appears to be accessible by simply pulling the piece of baffling between the oil cooler and the crankcase. For my engine, that baffling piece was secured by three screws--two at rear, and another at the front. That said, removing the oil cooler as well isn't difficult, it's secured by eight screws at its base. Removing the oil cooler makes the process much easier. --Paul Keller

I'm wondering if anyone has ever installed an EDM 900 or 930 in any K model, powered by any TSIO-360 engine. If so, where is/was the oil temperature instrument installed? I'm in the process of an EDM-900 install in my '89 K model, which I'd characterize as a factory-vanilla 252. It's powered by a TSIO-360MB engine. I'm stumped on where JPI's 5/8" NPT oil temperature sensor can be installed on the TSIO-360. This oil temperature sensor for the EDM-900/930 is different from what is supplied with JPI supplementary engine monitors and is apparently intended to be installed in a different place. I don't think it will fit in the location where the OEM oil temperature sensor is located, which is at the base of the oil cooler. JPI's tech support has not been helpful on this. --Paul Keller '89 K@KTTA

I'd agree that O2 bottles, even for built-in systems, at least in the US, are mostly regulated by DOT and not the FAA. The regulations governing their hydro test and replacement frequency are DOT regulations, and not the FARs. These are mostly kevlar bottles for built-in systems, which have a specified lifetime since manufacture. As a result, saving $100 on a bottle that's a year older is a false economy. Yes, I know about the oxygen lady, and that Spruce is also listing them. Conveniently, Spruce also provides the size & weight of the various bottles they're selling. The Mooney IPC provides for either a 77 or 115 cf bottle, as a result either is a legal replacement. The size I'm interested in is still TBD. We're waiting until the old bottle is out to make a decision. It isn't clear that the retention brackets can handle the larger bottle, in spite of the IPC not specifying any hardware differences for the smaller or larger bottles. The expiring bottle is a 77 cf bottle. --Paul Keller

My K model is currently in annual, with a timed out O2 bottle that's in need of replacement. In searching for a replacement on the 'net, it appears that the OEM bottles listed in the IPC are no longer available. Have the part numbers for these changed, and, if so, is there any AC which provides a cross reference between old and new part numbers? Having said all of this, it appears that PMA'd bottles are again widely available. Anyone have any recent experience with lead times on these? --Paul Keller

+1 for a pair of cowl plugs for outside parking . I have a pair from Bruce’s Aircraft Covers which I’m happy with. I mostly bought them for winter preheating with an installed Reiff preheater, but they do do a good job of keeping critters out, too. If you’re not already using a pitot tube cover, I’d suggest that, too, even inside a hangar. For the spring bird nesting season, you might consider a tail cone cover to keep birds out of the tail cone. Those are on Bruce’s list of covers they manufacture for Mooneys. At least where I am now in N. Carolina, for some reason, black birds LOVE to build their nests in the tail cones of Mooneys in spring. I cleaned one bird nest out of my Mooney tail while I was outside & on the waiting list for a hangar at my then-new base of KTTA last spring. I’ve also cleaned two or three bird nests out of the tails of my flying club’s J model Mooneys. If your fuel caps are properly maintained and adjusted, water ingress into the fuel tanks shouldn’t be a problem. I had no water problems in ten months on the ramp at my now current home base of KTTA, even through several heavy SE USA rainstorms. —Paul Keller ’89 K@KTTA

My JPI oil temp probe, which feeds an EDM-800, is in the crankcase nose. —Paul Keller

The low fuel lights in my ‘89 K seem to work pretty well and consistently. One comes on at about three gallons usable remaining, the other closer to five gallons remaining. Both of those results I obtained in carefully controlled tests in which I ran a tank completely out of usable fuel while circling an airport. That’s a test that I highly recommend to other aircraft owners. You don’t know what your usable fuel really is without performing that test, and then topping the emptied tank afterward. I’d also suggest performing the same test yourself on your own A/C before making any assumptions about how much fuel remains when the low fuel lights activate. I’m in agreement with those opposed to running fuel tanks completely out of usable fuel as a routine operational practice. Knowing that I have 3-5 gallons usable remaining when the low fuel light(s)activate, I am willing to burn one or two gallons beyond the low fuel light activation before switching fuel tanks, but no more. I’ve done that several times with no ill affects. —Paul Keller

For my standard-tank K model, it’s about five gallons. A standard tank J model should be very similar, since my understanding is that the J vs K fuel tank difference is outboard of the fuel caps. —Paul K

The only certain way to tell a 430 from a 430W is from the splash screen that is displayed on startup. —Paul Keller

Two spare spark plugs & all the tools I need to pull the engine cowl & install one or both. —Paul K