0TreeLemur

Some of the KX155 radios in our airplanes have capacitors that leak. Some of the trim pots, volume knobs and solder joints become problematic as well. They are good radios, but need some TLC after all these years. They still sell for nearly $2000 with a glide slope. A thorough test/repair/adjustment with replaced leaky capacitors cost a little less than 1 amu in early 2018.

I guess four or five Naugas had to die for these hides. We plan to put sheepskin covers on the front two after we pay for the next annual.

A local upholstery shop here in Tuscaloosa did the sewing. The fellow that did the work came out of retirement because nobody else in the shop had experience with aircraft seats.

Thanks for the detail. Look forward to hearing more. Not surprised that water rushes in- non-pressurized aircraft leak like a sieve.

Thanks @mark21m20c. We have not yet changed the carpet. What is in there now is not too bad color wise. There are some stains near the rudder pedals from what I assume is sweat from all that horsepower. Quotes from two places kind of scared me off. SCS interiors has really nice products, and I ordered samples. Their prices are on the order of $500 for basic nylon carpet. The airtex prices were less O($300), but their order form didn't seem to match my aircraft. My plane has four pieces of carpet- floor pilot, floor co-pilot, a thin piece attached vertically along the front face of the box beam and the piece on the baggage compartment floor. The AirTex form had several more pieces. So, I'm going to save carpet until after the annual sometime in 2020.

There is a paint job gonna happen in a couple of years. I wonder if there is a way to discover the factory original paint scheme?

Hi everyone- just want to share some photos of the new interior that we finished this past weekend. My co-pilot and I did all the work except for the seat upholstery. The new side windows are great. Solar gray with UV control all around. Not sure when it was last re-done but it was time for an update. The 52 year-old no longer smells like an old DeSoto with straw-filled seats!

Niiiice.

I wouldn't recommend that. Your transponder still transmits a discrete hexadecimal code that you cannot change, and that will reveal your attempt at spoofing. They would figure it out.

"wobbly exhaust valve"? That sounds expensive.

As a two year participant in MS, I have mixed feelings. Here's why: The anonymous nature of the site can lend itself to a lack of civility when things go sideways due to either misunderstanding, misinterpretation, misspelling, or sometimes just a strong difference of opinions. I've learned to try and avoid writing anything that anyone might take the wrong way. Some long time members are very friendly, like @carusoam who I'm sure everyone will agree is immediately welcoming, and I agree should be considered the "Dean of MooneySpace". In my opinion, this site should abandon the anonymous model. It will promote civility. Anonymity brings out the worst in some people. Secondly, this site should include a FAQ where longstanding threads addressing common and widespread issues with our aircraft should be posted. Using google to search site:mooneyspace.com frequently turns up a discussion of almost any issue I have. A thread with hundreds of posts, on a common problem, that is discussed to the point of the equivalent of a peer-review journal paper, should be easy to find. Sites usually do that by establishing a FAQ section. That will require one or more active moderators. Finally, I have learned a tremendous amount. A good search using google will often show that someone else has been down whatever road I find myself on. If the answer is not there, or if technological change is the issue, then a well-worded question will often elicit great advice. The professional folks who participate on MS are often very helpful with regards to mechanical and/or maintenance and/or insurance advice. @Clarence , @Cody Stallings @M20Doc and @Parker_Woodruff immediately come to mind. They really help our community and I suspect that many of us have gained from interactions with them and other professionals that choose to answer our questions. My 2-cents worth.

Here in Alabama I frequently hear the call sign "MafiaXX". I'd like to hear the story behind that one.

@EricJ nice thread and I enjoyed your pdf article. Do you think a SDR setup could be used to do the spectrum analysis as you did, or would it be too noisy? It seems that if the antenna is as far way from the computer as possible and near the USB adapter it might work? Thx.

When we recently redid our interior, the upholstery place made us some, but they were not suitable. So, in a pinch, we took one of my wife's leather belts and a hole punch and made our own.

Seth, can you upload a photo? I bought the expensive seal from knots-2-u and I did backstop it with some of the foam stuff where the door is vertical along the hinge. But, it still makes a lot of noise in the upper left hand side (inside looking out). How did you apply the foam to help? Thx.

Last spring I had my prop balanced, and the vibrations became worse at certain speeds. The problem in my case was the engine mounts, the bottom two were flattened like pancakes. Somebody before I bought it put in some washers to lift the engine back up. After replacing the engine mounts at a MSC this summer, she purrs like a Singer sewing machine now.

So- create a well thought out anonymous survey. I'll participate.

We had the same problem.

Just had mine done last week. $180 on a/c in Marianna, Florida. My prop is about 1570 h since overhaul (in 1990), and I was told by the repair station that the FAA and Hartzell are starting to urge IRANs of these props if they haven't been opened up in years. Since my prop has not had anyone look inside the hub for "decades" I guess sometime between now and next October I'll have it IRAN'd. Received an estimate of 0.35 to 2.3 AMU for the uncertainty that comes with an IRAN.

The original CBs in our bird broke when we put a screwdriver on them. Replaced all.

Installed it yesterday. The plane plastics door was not only thicker as @milotron said, the depth dimension of the plastic parts (out of the plane of the door) was elongated for the one that I got. I wound up trimming 1/4" to 3/8" off the entire perimeter of the door. That trim resulted in reducing the distance from the door edge to the the old holes, close enough (1/4" or so) that I could lift the edge of the new panel enough to see them and drill accordingly. The only wrinkle was this. After I trimmed the perimeter, the interior edges of the door panel where also extended so that at the bottom of the window the panel at the edge was about 1/2" off the door, while at the top of the window the displacement was about 1/4". So I marked the interior edges to cut of 1/2" from the bottom of the window and 1/4" from the top, with linear interpolation between on the sides. That end result was too much material removed . I'm not gonna buy a new door panel. Now I've created a challenging trim problem to solve. I've got a 1/4" to 3/8" gap along the bottom of the window and 1/8" gap along the top. So, it seems like a good rule of thumb is this: if the central portion is holding the panel off by N/8", then cut N/16" off and try that. Grrrrr.

Borescope up the tailpipe... Mooney colonoscopy?

Thanks @Immelman, I'll be sure to take the heat gun with me.

Thanks -a-. I have used 2) for woodworking/locating dowel holes. I hadn't thought of 1)- strip mastic being useful for this. But there are an awful lot of holes... I'll dig. But, drilling new holes would be easy, and lighten the aircraft some more

As part of our interior rehab we got a new cabin door plastic panel from planeplastics. The old one was shot. Does anyone have a clever way to mark the spots to drill holes in the new panel to match the screw holes in the door? There's got to be some way to do that it seems. Or, should we just drill new ones and eliminate the chance of a screw up?