CoffeeCan

James, glad to hear you’re finally getting your bird back. Keep us posted on progress, please.

Paul, no disrespect intended with my "minor lunacy" comment, and I get that a well-seasoned normally aspirated Mooney driver is probably gonna do fine transitioning to the turbo versions without much or even any dual received time. The fellas you've mentioned have been really helpful to me, as well. Particularly Brian, who I suspect has forgotten more about 20K engine management than I will ever know.

Not to sound like a broken record, but you really need to get Mike Busch's "Engines" book. Continental sets the CHT redline at 460 F, but as Mike points out, your engine's aluminum cylinder heads become highly stressed if you run CHT's above 400 F. You won't "kill" your engine, but you'll reach overhaul time a lot faster if you run hot. Busch recommends a max of 380 F for regular operations, and gives good reasons for that. You need to either enrich your mixture or slow your climb rate to keep your CHT's in the safe temperature range.

I fly with more or less the same settings in cruise, do the Big Pull to get LOP, and run consistently good CHT's and TIT's. Staying full rich on takeoff and climb keeps them well below the safety margins. I will confess that despite my transition training (which for a non-Mooney guy, was a like trying to get a drink of water out of a firehose!) it took a bit of reading, talking to other turbo Mooney pilots, reading posts here on MS, and finally Mike Busch's books to get me where I feel comfortable and confident I'm getting the best performance out of my engine and doing it the least harm.

I am late to this party, sorry about that... but back to the OP, and a couple of excellent comments thereafter, I would suggest that picking up a new M20K and flying it home without getting a good bit of transition training first would be minor lunacy. Even for an experienced C pilot. The M20K isn’t harder to fly, stick-and-rudder wise, but you have to manage the engine/turbo while you do so... and in critical takeoff and landing operations, your workload can be very busy indeed. Transition training will help with that tremendously. if you haven’t already done so, buy Mike Busch’s “Engines” book. Mike hammers on the concept that engine management is temperature management. Temperature management is not feasible unless you have an engine monitor that gives you CHT for each cylinder. As another person wrote earlier, run your engine ROP until you really understand the principles of leaning and temperature. Do NOT lean after run up or on climb. I haven’t seen an update yet... did you pick up your new bird? Keep us posted.

Airematt, thanks for the comment. I meant no disrespect to mom & pop A&P shops in my previous remarks, and I’m glad to hear your local shop is doing well for you. One of the benefits of doing this exercise in self-flagellation here on MS (and many thanks to all y’all who so delightfully pilied on!) is that a lot of kind people have reached out to me to help me work toward a positive way forward out of this difficult time. Y’all know who you are. Thanks a million! Mike Busch (who I’ve been a great fan of for some time) and his SavvyMX program are about to get a new subscriber today, thanks to some good guidance from Debbie and Paul. And I’ve started to gain the perspective I needed to look at positive solutions rather than being passed off and pointing fingers. This has been a great experience. You Mooniacs are awesome.

Right you are, and I meant to make that clear at the outset... the POH had not been updated. Ever. The guys at my last shop did a thorough going over of the logs and the POH. They got replacement pages from Mooney for pages that were damaged by previous owner(s). They corresponded with McCauley, Merlyn, and Turbo-Plus to get missing/incomplete documentation. I spent a number of hours at their shop over the 2.5 months they were working on it to help get the documentation straightened out.

Don, thanks for replying. I bought my plane from All American as well, which I still think is/was the smartest decision I made. Jimmy and David are really conscientious guys. I don’t put any of the blame that may be owed on them. You may recall that you were the first MS member I talked to on the phone when I joined up here. Thanks for the warm welcome.

I will save this advice for future reference!!

Jim, thanks for the comment. There is no doubt in my mind that a MSC is not infallible. Which is why I’ve talked to SavvyMX about subscribing. I want more than one pair of A&P eyes on my airplane from now on. But I will be using a MSC for the main work moving forward nonetheless.

RL, I moved from Corpus to KABI a few months ago, neglected to change my profile. My bad. So, yeah, GGG is a cakewalk in my K... but it’s the long walk by shanks pony back home I balk at...

Absolutely right, on the first part. You (or me) as owner-operator are ultimately responsible for the condition and airworthiness of the aircraft. As for mechanical inclination, this ain’t my first rodeo. It ain’t even my first airplane. And it doesn’t amount to a tinker’s damn that I can tear down a small block Chevy V8 and rebuild it better than it came to me, when it comes to airplanes. Aptitude and inclination is only a small part of the equation here. Could I be more knowledgeable about my aircraft’s systems? Hell, yes. Working on it.

Really?!? I had never thought of that. (where’s the sarcasm font button here on MS?)

Thanks for the reply. I’m not one who enjoys exposing his mistakes in public. But this experience was sufficiently disconcerting I felt I owed it to the Mooney owner-pilot community to share, in hope that my lesson can help someone else. Brusque comments are to be expected in such circumstances, but I figure it’s worth taking the lumps to shed some light that may save others some trouble. We seem to be on the same page. I like your “fly often” comment. I do. I’ve put almost 400 hours on my 231 since I bought her 2-1/2 years ago, including 20+ hours of dual-received time with Mooney-wise CFI’s. Having her run like a too now puts joy in my heart.

Yes, your style is a bit rough, but the content is clear enough. You’ve made a lot of assumptions that I don’t think it’s worthwhile to correct. Carry on. Let me preface my reply by saying you didn’t find a lot of questions from me here in MS because I tend to read and search rather than ask a question that has been hashed over every couple of weeks. Then I ask questions directly from persons who appears to have knowledge rather than throwing it out into an open forum where the advice may run from reliable and accurate to widely divergent opinions, some of which may be quite wrong. My approach has been far from “hands-off”... I’ve got my hands plenty dirty with this airplane. (Forgive me if I haven’t boasted sufficiently about what an awesome mechanic I am.) I was in the shop for several hours during the prebuy inspection and got grease on my hands and clothes and asked questions. I spent a lot of time talking to Mooney pilots and the A&P who did my first annual about my questions. I did NOT assume it was safe to continue with the airplane with the instrument issues in question, but because the mechanic in question was and is highly respected by other Mooney pilots, I took the airplane back to him several times to address the specific issues. I went to a different shop for THIS annual after asking around in my local aviation community and getting good recommendations for them. So, yeah, in hindsight it would have been a great idea to get a Mooney guy to fly my airplane to GGG for Don to do the prebuy. It would have been a great idea to take my bird to one of the premiere Mooney shops after my engine instrument questions/concerns were not addressed by my first A&P. But great hindsight and $1.79 will get me a cup of coffee at Stripes and not much more. So, what do I want to do next, you ask? Well, for one thing I want to find a new A&P I can trust for ongoing work. Since the consensus seems to be to fly to GGG, and now that my experiences over the past 2 years have convinced me I simply can’t trust a shop that isn’t a Mooney specialist any more, it looks like I’ll be working with Don Maxwell. (And yes, I’ll post on this forum to see if I can hitch a ride with a fellow Mooney pilot... that’s a great resource I hadn’t thought of.) I’m also thinking of subscribing to Savvy’s maintenance program. Mike Busch’s books and webinars are great, and I’ve only just learned that his company offers this service. Looks like a good investment... any opinions on that here? As I said earlier, I appreciate the responses from all y’all, rough and otherwise. I ain’t proud, and I ain’t fragile, and I’m always learning.

Thanks for the tip. I will be looking into it today.

Ken, have you looked at a map of Texas? Yes, I'm in TX, but I'm farther from Don than you are from San Diego... Still, it's an idea already under consideration.

Eric, I have been concerned on exactly that score. I am resolved to do some further research on the Mooney-savvy mechanics in north and west Texas now who I might engage for further maintenance, hoping to hit that middle ground. Any recommendations from members here would be appreciated.

I am sure I have not represented the Wt & Balance discussion adequately. I looked at the logbooks with current mechanic and he showed me the lack of updates to logs for addition of avionics. The only W&B entry for avionics was for the new ADS/B transceiver I had installed in 2019. Sorry I misunderstood on the prop... from what I was told, McCauley had a hard recommendation for inspection of the prop governor. Mine was in poor state, as previously noted. The oxygen tank issue was as you stated... I opted for the larger kevlar tank to replace the old steel one. I think.

Fellas, I appreciate the input and comments. Yes, a lot of this is on me. Again, I didn't know what I didn't know. I appreciate the inputs.

Tim, thanks for your comment. You don't know what you don't know, indeed! I can't help but try to keep a positive attitude, you know? I mean, I persist in getting into mechanical devices that defy gravity and take me places in a speedy fashion... if that doesn't require keeping a positive attitude, I don't know what does!

No, not at all. The seller suggested several shops he liked, and the one at his airport was the one I chose for the sake of convenience.

Of course, you're right. Typo on my part, which I've corrected.

I just got my M20K/231 back from the Annual From Hell. I offer this tale as an example of what can go badly for you if you make the same mistake I did. I took my airplane in for annual to be done by a reputable shop in Corpus Christi, TX, where I lived at the time. This was in August. I just picked the airplane up, finally, yesterday. The dollars expended in the interim were considerable, and could have been avoided if I had been a bit smarter. A bit of background: my bird is a 1985 Mooney231 that I bought in 2018 from a reputable dealer. The airplane had relatively low time for its age, about 3500 TT. It had had an engine overhaul done in 2016 by a shop in Oklahoma, and the engine had been installed by a different shop than the one that did the rebuild, and at the time I purchased the aircraft it had only 80 hours on the new engine. The price was good, right in the sweet spot of my budget, so I pulled the trigger. I had a prebuy done by an A&P recommended by the dealer. The prebuy was reported as good, log books passed inspection, no major issues were identified, so I bought the airplane of my dreams. I liked the A&P who did the prebuy, and had him do the subsequent annual in 2019. As it turned out, both the prebuy and the annual were not done well. I did not take it back to that A&P this year because I was unhappy with some engine instrument issues that he had not addressed for me. Specifically, my JPI 830 was giving me CHT, EGT, and oil temp readings that were significantly lower than my panel instruments. As the 830 is not rated as a primary, I had to reconcile the difference (I trusted the JPI much more than the panel gauges, based on a lot of evaluation in flight and on the ground). Also, I was not getting the performance from this engine that the books said I should be expecting... it was behaving more like my friend's 252, which is an old 1800-hour powerplant. My A&P dismissed my concerns, saying that "you just can't expect an overhauled engine to do as well as a factory rebuilt engine". I wasn't satisfied, and decided to have somebody else give my airplane a good going-over. The new shop was closer to home in any event, so my decision to switch was made. The new shop started finding serious problems with my airplane almost immediately. They called me to come in and look at the engine a week after I left it with them. The first problem they noted was that there were some very bad exhaust leaks from all 6 cylinders; these were due to the new/overhauled engine being installed with Lycoming exhaust gaskets, not Continental gaskets. This had caused significant erosion to the cylinder bases, and the exhaust stack on the right side of the engine. Three cylinders had to be removed and worked on to flatten out the erosions, and the exhaust pipes on the right side had to be replaced. Moreover, there was extensive heat damage to the instrument wires on both sides of the engine, both the panel instrument wires and the JPI wires. There was also some damage to the Merlyn wastegate, which was sent to Merlyn for inspection and overhaul. The Merlyn wastegate had been installed incorrectly, they said, and needed overhaul. As a final kick in the nuts, the damage to the #6 cylinder was bad enough that the cylinder needed to be replaced. The bad news continued. A thorough logbook check revealed that the plane had not been weighed for a new weight and balance since 2003, and considerable equipment had been added by the previous owner, so the airplane was technically illegal for flight since that time. The propeller logbook had not been updated. Actually, none of the logbooks were up to date or in compliance with regs. As a result, some major work milestones had been neglected. For example, it turned out that the McCauley 3-blade constant speed prop was 6 years overdue for inspection and overhaul. We sent it in, and the factory determined that the governor was so badly neglected that it was too far gone for overhaul and a new governor was required. It wasn't said outright that I was lucky the prop hadn't fallen off the airplane in flight, but it was implied. The de-ice boots were also well past their rated service life and needed replacement. And so on, and so on. The mechanics showed me badly eroded oil lines and fuel lines (some were heat-damaged by the exhaust leaks, as well), which all had to be replaced. The heat damage to the instruments wires required replacement of all those lines, of course. The main landing gear were not set to spec and hadn't been for years per the log books. Both fuel tanks leaked and required relining. The oxygen tank was almost 5 years past its service life and although the FAA doesn't mandate replacement, the new shop recommended this be done. I did some reading on that, talked to another A&P who concurred, and elected to replace that as well. The list of repairs needed was staggering. I was in the shop to look at problems almost every week. We waited for parts, for factory inspections and repairs on components, and the weeks dragged into months. The neglect of previous owners and the failure of the mechanics working on the airplane to do their due diligence had taken a real toll on my airplane, and the responsibility was all on me to deal with it. I finally got my bird back in the air last week. I took it for a 2-hour test flight, and spend a good bit of time with the mechanics before and after to determine the engine settings needed for break-in of the new cylinder and to properly evaluate the airplane's overall performance. I followed the list of tasks to the letter, and I was really pleased to see that my airplane is now giving me book numbers for performance. The downside, though was that the invoice total was really, really high. As in I could have bought another overhauled engine and had it installed for this amount of money high. I am glad to have a fully functional M20K now. This is the bird I thought I was buying in 2018, although the extra costs aren't making me happy. (I'm not sure if I have any recourse for the negligence of the shop that installed the overhauled engine in 2016 using the wrong parts, or for the negligence of the A&P who did the pre-buy and failed to note obvious exhaust leaks, the incomplete logbooks (that he stated in writing were complete) or the many out-of-date items like the prop and O2 tank. If I had been adequately informed by the pre-buy I would not have bought the airplane, obviously. If any of y'all here are attorneys as well as Mooniacs, and would care to offer advice on that score, I'd appreciate getting a PM.) Lessons learned. A pre-buy inspection needs to be done by somebody with some standing in this industry. And you need to vet the shop(s) you use for maintenance much more thoroughly than I did in the first case. Mea culpa.

Amigo, you are preaching to the choir! When I bought my 231, my insurance carrier insisted on a minimum of 15 hours dual instruction since I was low time retractable gear pilot. I hired David McGee at All American for that, and had a BFR a couple moNths ago with another Mooney-savvy CFI last fall. But engine management in the 231 is a black box to most people who don’t have one! GSXer pointed me to a CFI I can rely on for the best info and instruction in this area.