John Mininger

On my way out to Oshkosh this year from eastern Pennsylvania, my engine started running a little rough. I initially thought it might be my leaning technique, but the slight roughness persisted. I finally did an inflight mag check and found that my left mag was dead. Long story short, I landed at AGC, rented a car, drove to Oshkosh, and had the Slick 4372 replaced with a SureFly which I bought from Spruce at Airventure and had overnighted to the A&P at AGC. The engine is a IO360-A3B6. In the interest of simplifying the away from home installation, I did not have the manifold pressure line installed. The timing is fixed at 20 degrees BTDC. So far, so good, but my CHTs are running higher even with the fixed timing. I can't get close to POH 75% power numbers without the CHTs going over 400 degrees. I have to be either way rich, or way lean. I'll play around with that in the coming colder months. Two questions: My Slick 4372 only had about 400 hours on it since new. I bought the factory rebuilt IO360 A3B6 with the new mags in late 2019. Has anyone else experienced premature Slick failures? I talked to two other guys just on my airport alone that have. One guy had two failures! Both with lower time mags than what mine were! And my other question is: Is anyone using Tempest EAREM37HE plugs with their SureFly SIMs? Those plugs were originally developed for Electroair, but SureFly will tell you that they're OK to use if "your engine is approved for them". Frustrating stuff. I was planning to replace the Slick 4372 at 500 hours anyway. But not at the beginning of a trip, away from the home field at 400 hours. Thanks, John

Will streaming video of the sessions be available for purchase again this year?

Ace at ABE still lists a M20C in their fleet.

I recently talked with J owner who said that she had a SureFly with variable timing installed. She said that her CHTs were 25-30 degrees higher on climb with the SureFly, then with the mags. She said that she had the SureFly SIM reset to fixed timing and the problem went away. I asked her what power setting she used on climb and she said usually around 26 squared. I didn't think that the variable timing kicked in unless the MP was less than 25 inches. Has anyone else experienced this? And good to hear from you Chris. I was beginning to wonder if you were still around. I haven't really spoken to Jack since he sold his C. John

On a little bit of a sidenote, I remember Mike Busch saying one time that one of his clients had a pre-ignition event. It turned out the electrodes on one of the plugs heated up and became red-hot, because there wasn’t sufficient heat transfer to the head, because the plug had not been torqued correctly. Turned out it was only finger tight.

Interesting. The last time that I asked this question to the SureFly guys at Sun N Fun or Oshkosh they said that even though the SIM could handle a wider gap, the plugs should still only be gapped to the mag spec. But when I looked at the current SureFly installation manual, it says up to .035. Third page: f0684a_5c901873262249e59c4cb300f0fc8bbb.pdf (surefly.net) My Slicks only have about 350 hours on them. I was going to wait until they hit around 500 to change over to SureFly. So I haven't really been following the latest SureFly news. Has recommending a .022 to .035 sparkplug gap been a fairly new change? Thanks John

I'm just curious Skip. Just hypothetically, what do you think the optimum gap would be for UREM37BY plugs running on SureFly? Again, just hypothetically of course. Say, you were running an IO-360-A3B6 in an RV-7 with a SureFly ignition system. John

And thankfully Kerry's articles are still available on his website: ShopTalk Index (knr-inc.com) It would be great if an archive of all Jerry Manthey's articles were available. I have to think that MAPA still has them.

The top cowling on my 1977 J is going to need some fiberglass work in the not-too-distant future. It has a lot of spyder cracks, and the holes for the Camlock (or in my case, CLoc) fasteners are getting rather enlarged. I talked to a local aircraft paint shop. They said that it would be a very labor-intensive job. If I’m looking at thousands of dollars anyway, I might consider a Lopresti cowling. But I have no idea what they cost, or if they’re even available anymore. Anyone have any suggestions?

It does seem that with all the Cies senders being installed now, the time to do a fuel stick calibration is when the new senders are calibrated.

I had my panel replaced a few months ago and I had my old Klixon switch/breakers replaced with Tyco switch/breakers. Tyco Circuit Breaker W31 Series | Aircraft Spruce

What was the other 50%? We did spray some avgas on the threads of the jackscrew as best we could to clean it. We then put some grease back on it. That didn't seem to help much. John

Interesting. I have to admit, I've never tried going stop to stop on the ground. I noticed the problem when triming up on short final. And it doesn't just slow down, it stops. My serial is 24-0278, 77 J. I'm going to PM you. Thanks John

Thanks Skip. Do you know if you release the trim switch and then trim-up again, does the 24 second timer re-set for another 24 seconds? Because when I do that, the servo still has trouble moving the trim up on the second try. John

Thanks. He was going to call Garmin. But I haven't heard back from him yet. John