0TreeLemur

We've been using these. https://toolguyd.com/stanley-screwdrivers-diamond-coated-tips/ They increase grip and reduce the likelihood of head damage.

Hi Clarence, I'm pretty sure that this is what my A&P plans to do. I haven't looked yet, but I assume there is a bleed on the flap actuator cylinder? We will get back on this Wednesday. Thanks for your advice, Fred

Today, minor adjustment to right main gear door. Raised gear with a/c on jacks and the gear door touches underside of wing on the wing-tip end and is about 1/8" shy of touching the wing on the belly end. Next task is to try and completely flush and replace the hydraulic fluid, which has transmogrified into a substance with the consistency of honey. Maybe it is time to overhaul the parking brake while we're at it?

I just gotta say- I got such a kick out of reading what you guys have typed in this thread. Akin to being a fly on the wall at an aircraft design bureau... Stuff that as a fluids guy I never think about any more. Thanks to all.

What does 'SI' mean? I want to know so I can know what I hope I will never need. -thx.

Ahem.... I believe you are mistaken sir. What you are referring to is the TURBO encabulator.

@Andy95W, let met get this straight- you insert washers into the coils on the spring so it can't collapse when you unload it? Must not have that many coils? How do you hold them in place before you unload the spring? Tape? Clever though! Thanks.

Glad you got it solved too. My a/c is on jacks- need to lube those up/down locks and the sliding collar.

Regarding our investigation on why the right main landing gear door hangs about 1/2" open when the gear are raised, we dug into this deeply today and I have more to report. No gear rigging done today. None of the push rods seem bent. We performed the preloads and they were within spec. Down and locked seems ok. No unusual motion noted in the gear mechanism when in the down position. After checking the preloads, we removed the wheels from the main gear to do the brakes, and my A&P had me raise the gear so he could examine them in detail. That was different. By comparing the left and right main gear mechanisms, one key difference was observed. Pushing up or pulling down on the right main gear leg caused flexure in the push rod as shown in the photo, but not in the left main. It seems that the retraction truss hinge denoted with the red arrow in the upper-left is worn, which is allowing the force on the main to produce some slight lessening of the stress in that push rod when it is in the up position. Did not seem to happen in the down position, I suppose because of the preload stress disconnecting loads on the gear from the push rod. That explains why the gear door is not touching the underside of the wing despite being adjusted fully "closed". The wear in the retraction truss pivot point is allowing the right main to "sag" a bit when fully raised. Anybody dealt with this one? It seems like I need to order one of those parts (where hand is pointing)- retraction truss hinge or pivot?? Figure 1. Right main landing gear in up position with tire off.

Thanks Andy- he has those. Much appreciated! BTW- my inner engineer was itchin' to adjust the rigging on the gear- my A&P immediately expressed skepticism that it was needed. I'll give him a notch more credit...

Thanks for writing Andy. My A&P has the gear pre-load test tools. Is there a separate set of rigging tools, or is that what you are referring to? I'll take what you wrote to the hangar with me today. Then I'll put the two bolts that I removed at location "B" back in position and forget about rigging gear. Thanks for sharing your knowledge, experience, and observations of past threads.

It's also amazing how sharp those little bent metal tabs are around the back end of the nose gear well. Huh? What is that electric motor?? Where is the Johnson bar?? What kind of alien craft is this?

Our first annual update. There are two issues that my A&P is investigating. First, rudder motion is about 1/2" side to side with feet on the pedals. He says that it should be no more than 1/8". Looking for warn rod ends. Second, right landing gear seems to be out of rigging- when gear are full up, it is short of touching upper limit of wheel well by about 1/2 inch, which coincides with an approximately 1/2" gap on the gear door. Left main gear is full up. We'll try adjusting tomorrow. Long day, but hugely interesting for us! I find it seriously incredible the amount of "stuff" that happens in that 4" deep space below your feet in the M20. And that the aluminum floor is 0.032" thick. Oh- installed LED indicator light in parallel with fuel pump. That is cool.

Yesterday I was using a diamond tipped Phillips driver. Put enough torque on the heads pushing up from the crawler to start to fail the heads. I tried some penetrating oil with PTFE and tried again after an hour or so, to no effect. They are stuck.

I'm going to sick Big Dave the A&P on it tomorrow morning and see how he does it.

We just ended a long day of screw/panel removal. There are 3 stuck screws with partially stripped heads that will wait for A&P to deal with on Tuesday. Fun day in a brightly lit hangar. We are both tired. Thanks everyone for the input! We're looking forward to Tuesday when the fun barrier is broken!

My diabolical plan is to get the plane outdoors, in the clouds and rain, as soon as this annual is complete and I finish my IR. @carusoam when you say "Fogging" is that via aerosol can or something more complex like an actual atomizer?

@Boilermonkey I have not heard of corrosionX before. Sounds like a good product. I"ll order a couple of cans. Thx.

Thanks Clarence. The same A&P did the annual last year has some software that prints out applicable ADs based on model and S/N. He went through all the logs last year. It will be interesting to see how he follows up.

Thanks -a-. I was hoping for one of your lists. In a past life I was a farmer who did things like swap out a hydrostatic transmission from a swather in the middle of an alfalfa field. My co-pilot will be helping me tomorrow. She has skills- she replaced all the circuit breakers in our plane back in May.

My A&P is going to start doing the annual on my '67C on Tuesday. I've downloaded and printed the Mooney 100h/annual inspection checklist and have been studying the maintenance manual. He said I could get started by taking off inspection panels for him. I observed the annual last year as part of the pre-buy, but I didn't really participate to a degree that I remember much detail about what was done when/why. I've got some questions: Must all the inspection panels beneath the wings be removed or just some? I know not to take the ones off that are below the fuel tanks. My a/c does not have a 1 piece belly, I presume that all those panels must be removed between the wings? The empennage access panel comes off, as do the gap seals where the tail rotates in response to trim. What else? Surely one of you long-time C owners can give me some marching orders so my co-pilot and I can productively spend our Sunday helping get ready for the big inspection. Any hints on how to keep stuff organized so reassembly is made easier? Any warnings about things _not_ to do? Should I take the cowl off yet, or should I wait until after we warm it up to do the compression test? Will the engine warm up faster or slower with the cowl off? I'm full of questions. Thanks in advance for any advice. It looks like very nice day tomorrow in the 60's and I'm looking forward to spending some quality time in the hangar learning more about our Mooney.

Some CB's overhaul them for a lot less... An AC/Delco 0-30 Ohm sender from a 1934-1946 GM pickup truck with a lengthened float lever is what Mooney used in the original M20 smaller (<=26 gal.) tanks.

Before we changed to the JPI the fuel needles did bounce a lot when the fuel was sloshing in the tanks due to turbulence. When the floats were steady, the readings were steady. I think you nailed it they needed some damping. The JPI does that. BTW, installing any contemporary engine monitor is pretty straightforward. If you install one that can be primary like the JPI900, you can get rid of a bunch of steam gauges, plus get the oil and fuel lines out of your cockpit. We removed: tach, MP/FP, carb temp, and the entire six-gauge cluster containing L/R Fuel, CHT, Oil Temp, Oil Press, and Amps, because they are all primary on the JPI. Now all that info is located in one display, including 4 CHT and 4 EGTs. I highly recommend it. It is probably the best bank for the buck you can install in your Mooney. I seldom get the "fuel mismatch error" described by @Marauder

This "discovery" is academic hubris at its best. My point is this: there really isn't much too it, and electric field ionic propulsion isn't practical except maybe for a light weight silent drone flying in a low-wind environment. Ionic propulsion in the atmosphere is grossly inefficient because it relies on collisions between ions accelerated in an electric field and non-ionized species in the gas to produce thrust. Some of those collisions accelerate air in directions that don't contribute to the direction of thrust! The ion acceleration is limited by the electrical breakdown of air that decreases with altitude. If they were testing it with a higher field strength at takeoff, their electric field would break down the air and create an arc. Ever seen an ionic fan for sale? Nope. At higher field strengths below breakdown the ions can create NOx and O3, both of which are not particularly good for your health. Read this for grins & giggles and you'll see what I mean: http://www.airpurifierguide.org/faq/what-happened-to-ionic-breeze

And, as the professor in the video says, the electric field strength is limited by the breakdown of the air. What's that smell??? DARPA funds for silent drone research!