TheTurtle

Hoping to go pickup a new alternator at spruce tomorrow. I have a ALY 8420 in my F model now. I dont see any 8420s. Is the 8520 the replacement? Is the Plane Power al12-p70 a direct replacement?

well it wasnt just a fuse issue. Blew another today. Fortunately had enough battery and was closely watching the amp gauge on takeoff. Blew about 2 minutes into flight. so I notified the tower and turned around to land. My IA thinks the alternator is bad. Has 2000 hours on it. We tested resistance between F1 and F2. (was gibberish to me, need to reseach how an alternator works he says) We also disconnected F1 and F2 and turned on the master. It didnt blow the fuse so he says the VR is probably not the problem or at least not shorted. Yes it is a fuse not a fusible link. 5amp fuse which is what the R15V0N zeftronics manual calls for. The manual says you shouldnt have more than .2V difference between the I (power) lead and the battery voltage. Battery was 11.88. I lead was 11.66 yes I know thats .22... So I traced the wire. It leads directly to the master switch. through 9000 zip ties. Cleaned the connections up but got tired after IA said the bottom cowl, oil cooler, ram air and landing light have to come off to remove the alternator. I dont need this crap this week. Got my IR check ride on friday and was supposed to be cranking out approaches and holds all weekend so I havent rechecked the voltage at the I lead. Any great ideas? Im going to search MS for "how to remove your alternator" and hope and pray Spruce in corona has an alternator in stock I can pickup first thing in the am. Thinking about picking up a VR as well just in case.

Fired up the plane yesterday to shoot some approaches and test the rebuilt brittian autopilot. It hasnt flown in about 2 weeks. Noticed the battery was a pretty low at 11ish volts. but it started no problem. On runup I noticed the amp gauge was showing a slight discharge. I even said to my instructor, the amps arent amping but these gauges all suck anyway. So off we went. About 800agl the coms started flashing and the transponder went out completely. Nav/Coms were blinking and showing weird stuff on the panel. Reset avionics master and tried emergency avionics switch no help. Tried radioing the tower but they only got the beginning of one transmission and then nothing else. I put the gear back down and turned for the downwind (instead of the right turn to 340 they were expecting.) I could hear them talking in and out. Finally tower says if you can hear rock your wings. OK we see that. If you want to land rock your wings. OK clear to land 20L. And we made an uneventful landing and taxied back to the hangar. Went out last night and started poking around and hooked up the battery tender. There is a fusible link on the "Power" connection of the voltage regulator. Fuse was blown. went to day and got some new fuses. Battery was up at 12.4 from the battery tender. Pulled it out and fired it up and the amp gauge showed charging. In fact showing more charging then usual. Also the engine fired much faster than normal. I'm thinking that fuse was dying for a while and that's why I always felt my battery voltage was a little low and it was draggy turning over. So im thinking the fuse blew and the battery got low enough (I remember seeing 10.7 on the cig lighter volt meter) that the NAV/COM and xponder just went whacky. So lesson is 1. damn I love magnetos 2. Just because some of your gauges suck doesnt mean all of them do.

hopefully have them this week.

That looks really good. Scoring!! I messed one up using pencil and then have to rub off the graphite. Epoxy is also a great idea! Glad it worked out

Pulled the 2 rubber things off. Looks like glue in the void between the outer shell and the white plastic inside as well as a set screw probably holding that brass part in the middle

Here's some more pics. There a 'screw in the top and bottom but no way to open the unit to see the pressure contacts or wires. Well there's always a way but it may really not be fixable after...

Here's what it looks like inside. Wish I knew what it was supposed to look like. Can't tell if the thin coat of hardend glue is from a previous repair attempt. Not sure how the rubber boot is supposed to be attached.

so im a little stupid. put the DG and AI in without the spacer since there was no way to make the spacer fit on the DG. Took it out to run it up and see what happens with vacuum applied. DG worked fine. AI was tilted way back.... So I took it back in and used the spacer on the AI which fit perfectly. All good now. I guess the spacer came off the old AI not the DG. I should really take more pictures as Im working. Pretty happy. I was going to have to overhaul both of my old ones and got lucky and decided to cleanup some of my hangar mates junk first when I stumbled across these new ones which he basically gave me for free. Now if I could just find an altimeter around in there somewhere I'd be set on instruments other than getting my stupid backwards KNS80 working. (it shows to/from reversed most of the time and shows left right deviation reversed most of the time). All in all the hangar elves had a good weekend. Ill get my IA to sign off for me on monday. I did replace all the vacuum hoses while I was doing the work. Slowly getting the old girl into shape. You cant relaly tell since my panel is so ugly but heres the new units. And this is pretty funny. Theres a hole in the IP where the eyebrow light wire goes through. I think they made the hole about 16th to close to the DG. So instead of widening the hole the cut a groove in the old DG. I just had to shake my head. I rewired the eyebrow and opened up the hole. PO had some strange things on this plane.

Cleaning up the hangar yesterday found a brand new rc Allen tso'd DG still in box aND plastic bag. Removed My old one and I'm seeing some issues. 1. The old one had a spacer adapter, looks like it corrects for panel angle. Problem is on the new one the caging knob is so close to the bezel I can't slide the adapter between. 2. When I figure out how to make an adapter to fit the caging knob will be to short and I won't be able to push it in. Thoughts, ideas, sympathy welcome. I also found a brand new AI. When I removed mine there was no panel angle adapter. If the AI doesn't need one why does the DG? Do they make special long knobbed DGs?

well actually... Mine was attached to the DG not the VSI. And its not blue... I guess I just remember all the blue fittings. I pulled my AI and DG out today to replace them and run new hose and since I have the switch out im going to see if its fixable. I thought I saw a post previously on repairing it.

im not very fancy but it fits my fingers pretty well

yea theres a blue vacuum switch mine is attached to the back of the VSI. If you have hi vac the high vac comes on. low vac the low vac comes on. it should be showing low vac anytime the master is on and plane is not running. and probably when you are at low rpm as well. That switch is made of unobtanium and costs $400 I think. http://www.sigmatek.com/pages/prod_description/PD_ACC_vacswt.html You can test that its not the light bulbs or light sockets pretty easy by just jumping the connections on the switch and should get low vac light jumping one side and high vac light jumping the other. heres another thread about it. hope that helps.

this is a good idea. I just made a big ball with Quicksteel this afternoon and formed it around the key. Tested it and of course it fired on the first try in about 2 seconds so I couldnt even tell how much it helped. Will post pics of the masterpiece later.

Do you know the part number of the switch you replaced it with? Got the both mags overhauled at annual last month. On a cold start I crack the throttle turn on boost pump with mixture cutoff. push mixture rich for 3 seconds and turn off the pump. Crank and fire. When its hot I have a whole rigamarole with one handed acrobatics... I still havent tried your method from the other thread.

cool truck. I just sold a 58 long bed step side and 72 C20. Planes are expensive!!

jesus when was that? My car/farm truck/tractor knowledge starts with early 50's vintage. I do really miss the foot stomp high beam switch on my classic cars. bombing through windy country roads (before they had all those reflectors in the middle) barely hanging on to the corners and death gripping the wheel theres no time to dim your lights by hand!!

worked for cars for 100 years now. Yea lets make this weird thing where you have to turn and push just to be a pain in the ass.

Plane was being a pain starting today. Usually not an issue on a cold start. I think my battery was a little low. Point of the post is I hate the ignition system on the mooney. The turn to start and then press in is just awkward. On a good day its not to big a deal. On a hot start or a day like today when shes being grumpy it's downright painful on my index finger and thumb. Im wondering if its because I have a cheap aftermarket home depot metal key with a small "holding" side. It about the size of what you would think the baggage door key is. maybe I need a key cover of some kind? Maybe a big glob of quicksteel around the key for something to hold on to? anybody else have this issue?

my 80year old IA showed me a cool trick for the copilot seat. Just lift your butt out of the seat and onto the wing. then slide down off the front. If you dont have a beer gut that wont pass the door it makes it really easy to get out. My CFII has started using the "fred" method and likes it.

finally back in stock at spruce. I ordered backordered in september. just got a package thrown over the fence today with a spruce label. was hoping it was some new avionics I didnt remember ordering... alas it was just a tube of #7. I already did my jackscrew with #33 but if anybody needs it its finally back around.

sounds interesting. any plans on adding GEM data?

i have the manual and it said basically what you did. makes more sense in a single sentence like you gave it though. Im guessing then that "LOC" is even tighter on the tracking?

then i guess i have accuflite and accutrak as well. I have a switch on the panel to switch between nav #1 and Nav #2. Does your accutrak work? Talking with brittain yesterday they mentioned the "loc" setting on the dial will track a localizer. Still trying to wrap my head around the difference between the Trk and Cap settings.

I have cutouts in the front of mine for pitch trim and alt hold. Im just wondering what actually moves the elevator.