EricJ

It sure looks like that cover/grommet is backwards. If it was disassembled for some reason that might have happened, but even for the shear pin repair or other documented repairs it's not necessary to open the motor case. It looks like perhaps that cable was replaced at some point, which would provide an opportunity to get that sleeve/grommet reversed.

Yes, not sure why you're having an interference issue, though. This is mine installed. Fuel servo is still there, fittings are probably just out of the shot. The second pic is my servo fittings with the old Prestolite starter installed, which is quite a bit bigger than the Sky-Tec. Edit: The top pic is actually while my starter was still installed in a TIO-540, so isn't representative of clearance in a J model.

And a really good museum right on the field, too, if you have a few hours.

Paywalled.

Not sure what's going on there, but I didn't have that issue. I think mine is not an EC, though, whether or not that matters.

My governor had an odd leak where it leaked from the control input shaft, that the prop cable connects to. It apparently only leaked at certain positions, since it didn't always do it. I only figured that out because the governor failed and the prop shop saw it when they were testing it. The leak went away with the new governor, so that fixed it. Weepy oil leaks can be hard to find. You can try tricks like putting talcum or baby powder around the area and see where it's not dry, or putting fluorescent dye in the oil (which is harmless) and a UV lamp to find the oil. I've not had great success with the dye, but others have. Everything needs to be pretty clean to start with for either of those to work well.

Totally normal and common. There've been a few threads about this in the past as well.

That would make sense for one to be hardened and one not, and it'd make sense for the gear to be the soft one since it is easier to replace in the assembly. That doesn't match the failure wear patterns that've been shown, though, where the worm wears and the gear seems fine. For the load, I think if you spec'ed from max torque of the motor and then counted the number of output turns in a gear-up or gear-down cycle, plus the usual 6-second travel time for the cycle, you'd know a lot about the required load. Even though the load is supposed to be greater going up, the cycle times don't seem much different. Maybe we should start putting stop watches on the airborne gear cycles to see if it matters.

If it's been consistent there's probably just a little more wear to happen to fully seat the rings, since it only has 48 hours on it. I'd suggest just flying it the way you want to fly it and see what it does. If it doesn't get worse, you're golden, as it'll probably just get a bit better with time. And, yes, 5-8 hours/qt is pretty typical for 4-cyl Lycomings. The ones that do better are exceptional, and 15-20 hrs/qt is especially exceptional. That's low enough I'd be worried about something being too weird in there.

+1 that if you just need a surface hardness test, that's within the capability of many shops. Probably a lot cheaper, too. There may be an aerospace machine shop in your area that is well equipped. Since a vendor that already knows how to make them has been identified, instead of reverse engineering the materials of the existing ones it may be easier to just spec the dimensional requirements and load (from the motor torque and operational duration), plus expected cycle life, etc., and just have the vendor sort out how to meet the requirements. With suitable hints they may internally say, hey, we have a design that will meet that that can be slightly tweaked or sold as-is, etc. That's a pretty normal thing to happen. You might wind up with a gear set that's better than the originals.

That's not bad, especially if it's consistent. I think it took mine a hundred hours or two before it settled down. It's been 6-7 hours/qt since then, which is pretty typical, so you're not far off.

They don't put out as much power as the primary alternator, so the expectation is that you may have to shed load down to what it can support, or you'll be draining the battery to meet the excess.

NIce. There's an Air Disaster episode of a NOAA Poseidon aircraft that lost an engine while penetrating Hurricane Hugo in 1989, and wound up in the eye unable to hold altitude and dealing with a partially disintegrated airplane. It's a great story, but my favorite part was there was an Air Force C-130 in there, too, and they were able to come alongside and help survey the external damage to the aircraft. Jeebuz, but I'd have definitely loved work like that when I was younger. Full ep can be seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_E00cmcMWY

They're not infallible, either, but seem to be more careful and more amenable to being helpful when things do come out suboptimally. Definitely a good option when practical. A long-time Mooney owner based here in Phoenix takes his airplane there for annuals.

Same with metars. Obfuscate the information as much as possible so that the 1200 baud teletype machines can keep up, which stopped being a problem more than forty years ago. It's dumb, imho.

The only time I've had much trouble with a hot start was at high DA on a hot day. Took forever, but did finally start and stay running. Otherwise the usual advice in the thread applies. After a while it gets pretty routine.

It's bad in that there may be much less consistency, since each case may be decided based on the arguments made by attorneys on a particular side of a particular case rather than the management of a responsible agency. So instead of consistent application of an interpretation of the agency focused on the area, somebody's lawyer may drive with the interest of only their client in mind on a single case. If you have a lot of money and good lawyers, it's better for you, because you have more likelihood for control. If you're a typical individual, probably less so.

Same guy makes them for Mooneys. I think it's a practical option, but many are suspicious of the process. https://avunlimited.co/product/mooney-landing-gear-shock-disk/

You only need 3000 feet of runway separation to land behind another Catgory I or Category II (less than 12,500 lbs) aircraft, and sometimes the tower is monitoring that. I know roughly how far down the north runway that is at DVT, because it's not unusual to wind up landing behind somebody else and they're still on the runway. On a few occassions the tower has specifically spoken up that there's adequate clearance for me to land, but they don't always because they're probably busy with other things, too. It's obvious that they're aware of the rules, though, since it's a very busy airport and I've seen them handle it many times. There's nothing wrong with a precautionary go-around, though. I don't know what the situation was in your case, but if the tower thought there'd be more than 3000 feet of separation on the runway they may not have said anything.

So, as I mentioned, it just requires changing the regs, which specifically say "in person", and procedures. It's definitely do-able, it's just not allowed by the current regulatory language, as explained in the Moss letter.

The problem with that seems to be, as explained in the Moss letter, that the regs and various previous guidance and interpretation have consistently used the words "in person" for the last five or six decades. It is difficult to just sweep that away and say "not in person" is suddently okay because now we have Zoom. "Remote" inspection has been possible since photography was invented, which actually predates aviation, so I don't think it's strictly an issue that's suddenly come up due to new technology. I think the interpretation that remote inspection is not a good idea is a practical one, for the reasons stated in the letter. If someone bothers to take the time to overcome the hurdle of changing the regs and coming up with remote inspection procedures, then that could potentially change things, but that's a pretty high hurdle imho.

That happens on guard from time to time. Definitely funnier on an ATC frequency.

I went on the wrong taxiway once headed to takeoff and got held at the end of the runway for a long time due to "wake turbulence" from the landing Archers. I was actually really amused by that.

That's pretty cool! It's neat to see that there's still investment in modern techniques to produce these engines.

You can do exactly that if you want to. I have two G5s and an IFD500, and have an Aerocruz on order. There are lots of mix-and-match opportunities, but some systems have some restrictions due to how they were certified. The STC for each shows the restrictions for each.