PT20J

Like Don, one of my most “interesting” flights was with a salesman. I only got St Elmos fire on the windshield once — years ago over the Woodside VOR heading for SJC. I was in the clouds in heavy precip but there were no thunderstorms around thankfully. That was in my 1978 J with no static wicks and the coms were fine. I didn’t try the ADF.

KAP150 Pilots Guide.pdf Sonalert is in the overhead. You should also hear it when you disengage the autopilot. If not, I’d check the sonalert.

All the jacks have a spherical cup. This is to allow the jack point to freely rotate as the angle changes when the wing is lifted. They will work fine with the Mooney or LASAR conical jack points.

My 1978J didn’t have them. My 1994J does. I’ve noticed no difference flying lower altitudes in precip. YMMV.

I believe they were an option. Probably most helpful with ADF. The last time I replaced one it was hard to find the one Mooney used. I notice LASAR. has the 4” for $75 ea. Personally, I wouldn’t replace them.

Be careful if you ordered one of the pre-packaged screw kits. I found that some of the screws were too long. In most places it doesn't matter, but there are a couple of inspection panels where screws longer than called out in the IPC can damage control push-pull tubes.

You can get the service manual including the schematics in pdf form from Mooney. I got mine directly from Frank Crawford, but I'm not sure if he can still supply them or if you have to go through a MSC. The relay that controls the battery circuit is near the battery in the tail. Easy to check it's functioning with a voltmeter.

That crush washer is not crushed by torque but by turning the bolt 135 degrees. If it leaks I would remove the screen check the mating surfaces and install a new washer and tighten it properly.

Maybe Mooney did different things at different times. I know there was a decal because I bought one to put on my 1978 M20J that didn't have one at all.

Alpha 324 24” jacks work fine with my M20J. My pucks are pretty new.

The original is a self adhesive decal. Mooney should have them or can probably make one (Frank Crawford makes various decals to order). Email Frank for availability and part number and then order through a MSC. Fcrawford@mooney.com.

M20Ks and later have a bob weight and variable downspring instead of trim assist bungees used in earlier models and trim in flight with the elevator trailing edge up.

One of my JPI EGT probes went flakey at a little more than 1200 hrs. I’d replace them. CHT and oil probes should last longer.

Make sure all the accessories are overhauled along with the engine. I'd overhaul the oil cooler -- it's not expensive. Might be worth painting or powder coating the engine mount depending on condition. Also you want to make sure that the instrumentation is good for a new engine so it might be a good time to replace the probes depending on age and condition. R&R is pretty straightforward removing and reconnecting stuff.

There is no rote method that always works. Success depends on understanding what's going on. Gasoline will only combust over a fairly narrow range of fuel-air mixtures. The mixture control controls the amount of fuel and the throttle controls the amount of air admitted to the cylinders during starting. When cold, you are admitting a known amount of fuel by priming and the air is fixed by the throttle setting. When hot, the air is the same with the same throttle setting, but the fuel is variable. Why? When you first shut down, the fuel lines to the injector nozzles are full of fuel. The residual heat from the engine with no cooling airflow starts to boil the fuel out of the lines into the intake manifold. If you restart soon (say within a few minutes) this fuel "primes" the engine and it will start with the throttle cracked and the mixture in ICO. As soon as it starts, smoothly advancing the mixture to full rich will keep it running. If it has been sitting longer, the fuel will have evaporated and the lines to the nozzles are dry and it won't want to start unless you crank long enough to fill the lines. If you prime as cold it will flood. But, often turning on the boost pump for a second or so will refill the lines enough to let it start without flooding. This all assumes that your ignition system is good: Timing correct, magnetos serviced within the last 500 hours, spark plugs clean and gapped properly. The RSA fuel injection system does not meter fuel based on airflow below about 1200 rpm. So, to make it idle properly, the throttle is connected to an idle fuel valve by a linkage so that throttle position controls fuel flow at low rpm. The proper way to prime is to open the throttle at least 1/4 so that the fuel flow is not restricted. This should require about 4 seconds of prime. The reason you need twice that is because you have the throttle more closed. But, this introduces an additional variability in priming that may be an issue over a wider range of ambient temperatures and altitudes.

Should be the same as my M20J. There was lots of extra wire so I just used crimp butt splices. Easy and quick to install. I don't expect to ever have to replace the LED lights, but there's plenty of wire there if I do.

It's inside the door.

Which, in my experience, they do fairly often They finally published alternate GFC 500 gain settings for the J an K after years of complaints about pitch oscillations. It took a couple of years to fix the G5 battery killer drain problem. It took a few years and several tries to get the GSA 28 servos reliable. My G3X fails to show some TFRs shown on the GTN Xi although both get their data from the same GTX 345. I have sent several examples to Garmin and I’m told that engineering is looking into it - for months. Two takeaways: 1. New products often have issues and being an early adopter can be painful. 2. Garmin does have a pretty good record of (eventually) fixing their mistakes on their nickel.

I put a Garmin USB in the right side of the panel for passengers when I redid my panel. But I didn’t fancy loose wires running around for my yoke-mounted iPad so had a True Blue aircraft charger mounted behind the panel and ran a USB cable below the yoke shaft where it is out of the way.

Part of Lycoming’s strategy to control costs is to shift from having a lot of parts made outside to making more in house. Another part is to run only one line for non-custom engines. So, new, overhauled and rebuilt are all made on the same line with the same techs and the same QA. Custom engines are built in a separate area by a single tech. When I visited the factory a couple of years ago, they admitted to having lots of start up problems when they brought the cylinder head machining in house. That was part of the problem. They were also shut down for a while during COVID and at the same time, orders went way up because a lot of people figured the pandemic was a good time to get their engine overhauled or buy one for their kit project. I am surprised that they are still so far behind. Lycoming’s largest customer by far is Van’s and apparently the bankruptcy hasn’t slowed RV building down much. Business must be very good if they can’t catch up.

Garmin has a myriad of solutions. Not everything works with everything. The GFC 500, G3X and G5 were designed to work together as a system. The GFC 500 autopilot software is in the PFD. The software was added to the GI 275 so it will work with a GFC 500 also. The G3X and G5 PFDs were not designed to drive legacy autopilots. The GI 275 is unique in that it will work with legacy autopilots and the GFC 500 as well. If you want to retain a lot of legacy equipment including autopilots and want a large screen, the G500TXi is the best solution. My advice is to always decide first what autopilot you want and then go from there to build out a panel. The autopilot is the keystone.

Bevan repairs these.

Garmin changed its notification system a couple of years ago and I stopped getting emails. I contacted the warranty dept and they straightened it out. I now get emails when service literature is published for my registered equipment. However, I did not receive notification of the release of G3X 9.17 or 9.18 and there are no service bulletins for them as @Rick Junkin noted. I sent and email to aviation support at Garmin and asked what's up. I'll report back if I get an answer. I reported to them some time back that the GTN software webpage did not show the most current release and they thanked me for letting them know, but it still shows 20.31 even though 20.42 is current.

Careful, my Garmin dealer has an avionics shop and a regular maintenance shop. The shop rate for the avionics shop is lower than for the A&Ps. You could not come up with enough colors to color code every wire in the airplane. That's why the factory wiring uses a wire designation system and the schematics show wire designations and the wires are labelled. Any good avionics installer should have a wire label printer.

As @EricJ said, DC is more likely to magnetize the structure than AC. Nothing draws more current than the starter and the wire from the battery in my J runs along the left side tubing. Since that doesn’t seem to cause a problem, I wouldn’t worry about a vacuum cleaner. Still, I find it much easier to use a shop vac with a long hose in the cramped space of the cabin.