MBDiagMan

I also get frustrated with Garmin, but when it comes to modern Avionics, ruling out Garmin really puts you in a box. $50K should be an adequate budget, but can you be more specific about your goals? Do you want to go to an all glass cockpit? Do you want to use something like a G5 or AV30 while you’re putting this together or would you rather stay with steam guages? Posting a picture of your existing panel might be a good way to move the discussion forward constructively. I have a Stratus ESG in one of my planes and love it. That said, it does not provide traffic and weather to a navigator as does the Garmin 345. If you could hold your nose and buy Garmin, their stuff plays together well. Putting together a /G panel with the goal of avoiding Garmin products altogether definitely makes for a more difficult project when it comes to architecting it. Also Warren, what part of the country are you located in?

My first suspect would definitely be the antenna and it’s cabling. When working on radar problems in the army, wiggling the coaxes commonly located source of noise and flaky signals. Not scientific, but we had to get fire control radar systems back on the air FAST and that method was often successful.

The brake was the problem with mine. The guy in Sacramento has a supply of brake parts I believe.

I agree with you EXCEPT GPS IFR navigation I think is a savings for the government, but NOT for the aircraft owner.

It was $5000, but it’s been so long since they promised their certification was in the works, it’s had time to absorb aviation level inflation. If hey would have been truthful we could have bought one then for $5K.

Since this is aviation it might be bound by a specific procedure, but nothing could be simpler. As long as you have a dial indicator and some standard Mount apparatus just remove the rocker covers, set up the dial indicator and turn the prop. Read the dial indicator and record the measurements. Easy Peasy.

You’re right Carlton. That’s the place. They did very good work for me and at a reasonable price.

The lifters staying full of oil within the hydraulic plunger area is not related to the lifter face erosion problem. If the oil stays on the lifter face and cam lobes then this will prevent the destructive corrosion.

After having bought a plane that after setting up an extended period, I think I have an experience on the subject worth sharing here: To the sellers credit, before putting it up for sale, he removed the cylinders and inspected the cam and lifters finding everything apparently fine. He honed the cylinders, replaced the rings and put it in service running very well. I flew the plane regularly saving for a few multi week periods of setting up while working through gear problems. After about 65 hours, metal showed up in the filter. We pulled a cylinder at that point and inspected with mirrors finding only a faint line of very light corrosion on one lobe, but lifters looked good as best we could tell. I ran another 15 hours before doing an oil analysis. It was not good and there was metal in the filter. We pulled all the cylinders at that point and found two adjacent lifters significantly spalled. I won’t go into the rest of the actions taken at that point because they’re not Germaine to the thread subject. What I now believe is that Inspecting Lycoming cam and lifters is a non conclusive process. If there is the tiniest spec of material missing from a lifter face that is undetectable with an inspection. Once there is a tiny crater, it will start to come apart much like a pothole. One tiny piece will come out, then another tiny piece and so forth. After this experience, I believe that the flight history of the plane might be much more important than a cam and lifter inspection. The cam is high and if the engine sets for an extended period, what length of time I’m not sure, without roller followers or DLC lifters can very easily lead to the problem I’m dealing with. It only takes a small area of corrosion on a lifter face for this destructive process to begin. I believe there is no set time limit for it setting up. It’s not simple. The problem is related to time but not indicated purely by the length of idle time. The root of the problem IMHO is CORROSION. Many factors effect the amount of time before an amount of corrosion occurs that is damaging. If it is flown often enough, for periods of time long enough at an oil temp that is hot enough to drive out all the moisture then corrosion probably won’t be a problem. It also has to do with the storage climate, its temperature and humidity. I have not done any research on Camguard. I don’t know it’s claim to fame. I THINK that the idea is that it makes the oil cling to the cam for a longer amount of time. I have heard people rave about it being totally convinced that it will completely eliminate the problem forever. I have heard others claim that it is nothing but snake oil. I have not looked into it so I have yet to form an opinion. I believe that the best preventive option lies with roller lifter or maybe DLC coated lifters. The only real conclusion I have drawn is that setting up can be terribly destructive for a Lycoming.

That means 40A Max. The current draw will depend upon the load it’s under. Apparently in the Mooney landing gear it is under a load that should not exceed 25 Amps.

I went through this recently and the problem was a locked brake in the actuator. Once it’s on Jack’s, fashion a way to measure current to the actuator. I bought an inexpensive DC Amp clamp. Actuate the gear multiple times while monitoring current. If it immediately exceeds the 25 Amp current limit, look for a short in the wiring or more likely the actuator itself. To quote Carusoam “PP only, not an A&P.” Although my education is Electrical Engineering.

Yeah. DONT DO THAT!

You mean falsify your records?

I think the step is there because the panel to the left of the radio stack is shock mounted. At least it was on my C. I haven’t seen evidence of that in my F.

Actually as Bass Boats go here in the Texas Lake Country, my boat is not even close to being in the Fast Bass Boat Class. The tournament fishermen want fast boats so they can spend less time traversing the lake and fish those last few minutes before racing across the lake to the weigh in. That’s what they say, but my take on it is that the fish are always biting on the other side of the lake so you have to get over there in a hurry. When I was a kid, the fishing boats were, by far, the slowest on the lake. Now the tournament fishermen usually have the fastest boats on the lake.

I thought Kiekhafer was Evinrude...... Nope, you’re right, Mercury. He was one of the first major NASCAR sponsors. I was thinking he was Evinrude.

600HP Outboard? My Ranger bass boat with a 150 Mercury will do almost 70 now. Maybe that 600 on the back would get it out of the water well enough that it could serve as both my boat and an airplane. Such consolidation would certainly be helpful on the budget.

I’ve been through it with batteries and the only thing I will buy is a Concorde Sealed. That said, the lithium batteries are being introduced and improved all the time. Their time may have come.

Whatever you say, but those aren’t the numbers I got from my avionics shop. A poster here went through his own Garmin AP costs and it cost more than he was originally told, but hey, you’re obviously the expert. I can say for Garmin though, at least they make good on their claims and make it available instead of telling ferry tales year on end.

Yes, and it’s possible to legalize an owner produced part.

Canuck, This is nothing except my opinion formed after extensive reading about the cam/lifters situation, but I believe that if you go with your choice number two, make sure you use the latest DLC coated lifters. From the current indications they will improve your chances of ongoing cam and lifter health as much as the roller solution. My $0.02,

Lord, please have mercy!

Yes, There has been a Mooney seen at Maxwell’s ever since Trutrak told their ferry tale about “certification next month” back in October of 2018. I fully expect that the autopilot works quite well, but the FAA apparently has yet to be asked for their opinion on the matter. Edit: I want to be clear that I am not in any way implicating Maxwell in the Trutrak/Mooney fiasco. I fully expect that he is in no way responsible for the myth laid on us by Trutrak. There happens to be a Mooney seen there with Trutrak graphics. If you were building a new autopilot system and wanted it tested on a Mooney, who better to hire for the work than Maxwell?

How can I say that? My math skills are adequate. The Trutrak people said $7000 installed and I’m SURE that Trutrak would never tell anything that is not true. The Garmin installation, unless you already have a G5 in place will top $20K, say at least $21K. What is $21 K divided by $7K?

The Garmin installation will cost three to four times as much as the Trutrak, but is a very nice autopilot and AVAILABLE when they said it would be. Three times better? No, but at least they didn’t tell a bunch of people that it will be ready next month and then well over two years later still perpetuating a rumor that it will be ready in a few months.