PT20J

I didn’t see anything in the C-F manual. Here’s the drawing from the J manual with the newer type steering horn.

If you have a mechanical tachometer, it's always good to check the accuracy as they can easily be off by 60 rpm. It's not clear why the prop full forward only turns 2460 in cruise. Does it turn 2500 in climb? The governor should keep it at 2700 in both climb and cruise.

I agree with @EricJ. The IPC is for identifying and ordering parts; it’s not an assembly drawing.

A quick search for CGI Federal turned up: "Unlocking the power of AI with CGI Federal: A digital accelerator for your agency. CGI has harnessed the power of artificial intelligence (AI) to create ..." Can't wait for AI-generated NOTAMS.

To be honest, I really don’t pay that much attention to it. George Braly told me that he thinks that all the engine monitors %power indications are inaccurate (except, of course, the proprietary one he developed for Cirrus for the Perspective )

The G3X %power indication seems pretty accurate LOP but may overestimate power ROP. The best way to be sure you have the same power LOP and ROP is have the same airspeed since the airplane doesn’t care how the power is produced.

One area of confusion with LOP operations seems to be sorting out theory from technique. What makes the engine go is pressure from combustion in the cylinders doing work on the pistons. For a given power (say 65% of rated power) the BMEP (Brake Mean Effective Pressure - the average cylinder pressure) is going to be the same independent of fuel/air ratio. The primary advantage of LOP is that it is more efficient - less fuel is burned per horsepower produced (this has the beneficial side effect of extracting more heat from the chemical combustion process as useful work so that less heat is rejected to the cylinder head). However, for the same MAP (manifold absolute pressure), more power (that is, greater BMEP) is available ROP than LOP. Another way of looking at it is that more MAP is required to develop the same power LOP than ROP. If you increase the MAP (airflow) LOP then the fuel flow must increase to maintain the same fuel/air ratio. How you do all this is a matter of technique of which there are several.

It's not really an issue. All it takes is a stubby wrench to torque the B nut. But, it's not a bad idea to check all the B nuts to make sure they are tight and I now put torque seal on them to make it obvious if any have loosened (they never have).

At the museum, we used to have the prop shop send us a crate.

LOP increases the engine efficiency because the combustion gasses expand through a greater temperature change converting a greater fraction of the available chemical energy in the fuel to work. This is evidenced by the lower EGT when LOP. In theory, the BSFC (lbs/hour per horsepower) curve would decrease linearly with decreasing fuel/air ratio until the mixture was too lean to combust. However, in a real engine, at some point the mixture is lean enough that there are increased cycle-to-cycle pressure variations in each cylinder regardless of the quality of mixture distribution. This is why engines usually run somewhat rougher LOP than peak or ROP. Also, the burn time increases as the mixture gets leaner. Both of these effects tend to reduce efficiency. The effect is that the BSFC curve plotted against fuel/air ratio has a flat area centered somewhere around 50 dF LOP (varies with engine and combustion chamber design). In this region BSFC is approximately constant which means that the power will be a direct function of fuel flow.

You might check with Crown. They have done several Mooney avionics installs and I have seen Mooneys in the shop for maintenance and annual inspection. Casey VanLier is the shop supervisor. caseyv@regalair.com, 425-355-4088.

Nice job handling the emergency. 5500 feet isn't all that high -- probably less AGL -- and you made the Mayday call, found a landing spot and did all the troubleshooting you could. The B nut on the fuel pump was probably loose at takeoff and vibration caused it to become a lot looser in flight. Since it was on the output of the fuel pump it could easily reduce fuel flow. The pump will attempt to maintain fuel pressure by increasing the flow, but most is going out the leak and not to the servo. The 3-6 gph you saw at cruise throttle probably drove the mixture too far LOP for combustion. I had that same B nut come loose on my 1978 J. Fortunately, it was only slightly loose and I noticed it when returning to the plane after a short stop because gas was dripping on the nose tire. I was lucky because I had planned a long flight with my wife the next day over inhospitable terrain. I tightened the fitting and never had another problem. I would expect that yours will be fine.

Mooney used a lot of off the shelf parts. There is a note in the M20J IPC that the source for the convex mirror used with the wing-mounted taxi lights is K-Mart. If you are looking to replace the handle, since it is a standard part, I'd just find a cabinet handle that fits.

I certainly don't blame the owner. Owners should be able to take their airplane to a shop and trust that the mechanics know what they are doing. But, sadly, this isn't always the case. And, in my experience, some A&Ps are pretty weak on electrical system knowledge. I agree that the schematic isn't readily interpretable by someone unfamiliar with alternators. But, as I said above, externally regulated alternators have standard connections. I'm sure the mechanic learned something and won't make this mistake again. But, since it was a mistake, if it were my airplane, I would expect the mechanic to replace the alternator. The warranty is most likely voided by the incorrect installation. The fact that the ALT breaker tripped means that a lot of current went through the alternator. The purpose of that breaker is to protect the wiring between the alternator and the bus in case of a fault because the battery is connected to the bus. The breaker is sized to carry more current than the alternator is capable of supplying so that it will only trip if there is a fault that would cause the battery to feed current toward the alternator.

On the -A3B6D engine, there is an adapter for the spin on filter that is attached to the accessory case by the threaded fitting that the filter screws onto. There is a rubber gasket between the adapter and the accessory case. When changing the filter it is possible that the adapter comes loose and damages the gasket.

There are no electrical installation instructions because the use of the B+, F1, F2 and case ground are standard. The Aux terminal provides a low current output and it's use varies with the installation. Per the Mooney schematic above, it is not used on this model. Some later M20Js used it for driving the Hobbs meter. Sometimes it is used for powering an idiot light or the voltage regulator. But it is NEVER connected to a ground. Older alternators had a single field terminal and the other end of the field winding was grounded internally. When there are two field terminals, one is connected to the field wire and the other is jumpered to ground (it doesn't matter which is power and which is ground.) The schematic in the troubleshooting guide above shows a generic connection diagram.

Hard lesson. Next time, refer to the schematic in the service manual for the correct connections.

According to RPM Technologies, PolyGone (chemical used to remove tank sealant for a reseal) will attack paint and primer. A lot of MSers have had tanks stripped for resealing using the recirculating stripper technique. I'm curious what your experience was with respect to damaging the paint.

If I were in your shoes, I'd get dual G5s and the GFC 500. That's going to be the lowest cost configuration and is perfectly adequate for safe, comfortable IFR. I would take it to a shop that had done GFC 500 installations on Mooneys so that they are not learning on your airplane.

No, I haven't had a disconnect in a long time and I only had two. The first, there was an uncommanded roll and near simultaneous disconnect. The logs did not show that the servo caused the roll so it might have been turbulence overpowering the roll servo. I don't know and it never happened again. The second was level in cruise in ALT on a bumpy day. It disconnected and I reengaged and it disconnected again. Subsequently, I initiated a climb to get out of the turbulence and reengaged during the climb in VS (I think) and it worked fine. The logs showed that it disconnected due to a miscompare between the G3X and GMC 507. It's been flawless for a couple of years. Skip

I have twice accidentally run my G5 battery completely dead. Both times it has fully recharged when the G5 was running on ship’s power.

Polyurethane takes up to 30 days to fully cure, so new paint will be more vulnerable. I’d take it back to the paint shop. A quality shop will want to fix it. Resealing an access panel to fix the seep isn’t difficult. I just had one of mine done in preparation for painting. Then they can fix the paint.

They should be painted. I think the exhaust gases would likely be corrosive to aluminum.

Try hand flying a constant airspeed climb in turbulence and compare to the autopilot.

Preflighted a Schweitzer 300 just out of annual inspection and found bolts on all three pitch links missing cotter pins. Told the DOM he couldn't be my friend again until he replaced them. Always preflight these things carefully.