0TreeLemur

Ditto. Installing screws by hand so you can feel what is happening is the ONLY way on an airplane. When it starts to feel "odd" you can back it out and investigate further. That's how I spotted the problem in the first place.

There are three Mooney's based at TCL. I haven't yet met the owner of the plane that flew this mission, N7132V.

To answer my own question it is not a floating nut plate so alignment was not the issue. Running a tap in did clear the way. It seems odd to me that suddenly it developed a problem. I can't imagine what caused it to change. I suspect that nut plate is going to need replacing sooner rather than later by an A&P with the experience and tools, which I am not.

This is what I do too. And it allmost always works. There is a video by Don Maxwell about hot-starting a Mooney that I really enjoyed and thought was educational. It's linked here on this site multiple places I'm sure. In that video he said "Lycoming engines always start flooded." I took that to heart and it relieved my stress about starting a hot or warm engine.

Does not answer my questions at all.

An A&P did some work on my Mooney today. He and I put the lower cowl on and he left for the day. While installing the upper cowl I encountered a problem. The upper cowl on my '83 J has a bunch of quarter-turn fasteners and three machine screws on each side. Two machine screws go into the stanchion around the propeller flange, and one on the forward corners. The screw on the right forward corner started normally but after a few turns started to get real tight... Those are stainless steel screws and it felt like it might be starting to spall. So I backed it out. It was tough to turn and definitely felt like it was spalling. The threads were definitely messed up. Looking in there, the threads on the inside nut plate are not perfectly aligned with the hole in the nut plate. The threads on the left front nutplate are centered. On the right hand side it seems that the nut is too high. Looking in there I could see a many threads in the bottom of the hole and none in the top. Question: are those nut plates with captured floating nuts? Why is it suddenly out of alignment, and how can I center it? Any ideas on how to fix this? One Idea I have is to run a tap in there and see if that centers it. Thought I would ask the collective about this idea before trying it. Thanks, Fred

According to the log books for my '83J the NBS was replaced in Oct. 2002: "C/W Mooney SB M20-279 installed ModKit-1 P/N M20-279-000" The sticker on the actuator labeled "Maintenance record clutch spring replacement A 10-85" has a "1" punched in the the first square. It seem that in 2002 Mooney sold a kit.

Nice thread here-

If eBay didn't charge so much commission, I'd buy this thing and list it there. This is a great price for a great engine monitor. IIRC when I bought this same system for my J a couple of years ago it cost closer to 6 AMU's. Somebody buy this! It's primary for everything. You can take out all your old analog fuel gauges, tach, and MP.

Follow up: I bought a 10-32 Helicoil insertion tool off eBay. I put in some oil, and ran that tap in/out a couple of times. Degreased with some brake cleaner. Loaded a short (5 thread) Helicoil insert into the machine- zipped it right into place. Those insertion tools are the sizzle. Problem solved.

That's not terrible. That still makes this system a good deal IMO.

I sold an EI engine monitor when I upgraded our J to a JPI ED900. EI gave me an estimate of a couple hundred $$ to do the reprogramming. Curious- is JPI much higher than that?

When I was troubleshooting the A/P in our J, I replaced that switch to negative effect. When I was studying it I read that the high failure rate is caused by the fact that under trim servo load, the switch is operating near its rated current. A good way to extend the life of that switch is to never use it (except in case of emergency). If you never use it, it never disconnects under load, and doesn't damage the contacts. Not my informed opinion, just something I read that kind of makes sense. It is a minor pain to replace but not a major pain like it seems replacing the trim switch would be.

Mouser part number MB2061SS1W01-BC If you have trouble finding it in stock elsewhere.

Is your C equipped with a PC system? If so, Is it working? Adding an Accutrak II to a working PC system is relatively straightforward. My C model had a working PC system when I bought it. I added Accutrak II (NAV mode), Accuflite II (HDG mode) and PC-AH (altitude hold). The Accuflite and PC-AH parts are damn near unobtanium. I've got spare parts for the Accutrak II left over. Others might have more parts. If you don't have an installed PC system, then doing any of this would probably not make sense.