Adi

The installation instructions for the CGR-30P are here: https://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/pdf/CGR30PINSTALL.pdf Page 22 of the PDF ("13" in the footer) shows that the gyro vacuum pressure line is supposed to be connected to one port of the sensor.

Hey folks, I have a 1983 M20J with two G5s and a KG-258 mechanical AI driving my ancient KAP-150 autopilot. I also have a CGR30P/C engine monitor combo with a vacuum pressure indicator. During a flight a couple of weeks ago, the KG-258 started misbehaving and showing more and more erratic indications. Seeing that the vacuum gauge was reading green (albeit lower end of green, around 4.7"), I assumed it must be an instrument failure. I purchased a KG-258 from a fellow Mooneyspacer who had it removed for a full panel revamp and it was working when removed (I fully trust that, and they've also offered to refund me the purchase since it's not working). However when installed in my panel, this KG-258 also behaved incorrectly. It's possible that it may have been damaged when removed, in transit, or when installed, but barring that I want to poll the audience in case there's something I could be missing. Can I fully trust the digital vacuum gauge indicator or could it perhaps be installed incorrectly? From what I remember the original panel did NOT have a vacuum gauge at all so the CGR installers may have manufactured a T-splitter and put the gauge on one side of the split, I wonder if a leak on the side that goes to the instrument could cause lack of vacuum pressure but still have that undetected on the gauge side? Is 4.7" - 4.8" of vacuum pressure normal for other folks? I looked back at my previous engine monitor data and it's always been like this since the CGR was installed. Thanks, Adi

I'm not entirely sure how to debug this problem without replacing the switches in turn. Since the electric trim recovers just by cycling the CB switch, I thought it's more likely that the problem is in that switch. If you folks have any suggestions for pinpointing the problem, let me know.

Hey folks, I'm trying to find out the part number of the electric trim switch in my 1983 M20J. Sorry for the potato quality photo (it's a still from a video), but it's the rightmost switch in the attached photo. I am not sure if the switch is stock or it's part of the autopilot system - any information appreciated. Higher level, lately my electric trim has been acting up, it would intermittently stop working but start working again after resetting this switch. An autopilot shop has suggested the switch itself as a likely culprit.

Sorry to revive a 2017 thread.. mind providing a link if you happen to have one? I haven't been able to find the original file to 3d print at home. Of course, totally understand if the original designer prefers not to share it.

Igor - you bought a wing access panel, drilled in it and substitute it for your existing panels? Or did you drill into one of the existing panels? If the former, where do you buy a wing access panel?

That's truly amazing. Wish I had a gun port in my Mooney

Hey folks, I'm thinking of using a GoPro sticky mount at the tip of my wing and attaching a Hero Max for some hopefully cool 360 footage. I know folks who have done it with a suction cup but I find that a bit scary - liability of a camera falling on someone on the ground.. Several aspects of concern come to mind: 1) Aerodynamics. My guess is something as small as a GoPro would be negligible but these things tend to be unintuitive. Any differences here between top of wing/bottom of wing, further towards the edge vs closer towards the root etc? 2) Legality. Unlike a suction cup mount or the tiedown hook mount, this is a more permanent fixture. 3) Durability / Safety. The mount will effectively be attached to the paint. Any chance the wind might rip the camera, mount and paint off together? 4) Removability. Do I risk permanently damaging the paint when/if I decide to remove the mount? Curious what the collective brain of MooneySpace has to say about these things. Thanks in advance all, y'all have been hugely helpful whenever I had Mooney questions so far Adi

Yeah, that was an easy fix - their replacement of the sonalert itself fixed the problem!

Fantastic replies everybody, thank you so much. Thank you @ArtVandelay for taking a look at the detailed estimate and giving your opinion. For everybody's reference, here are my 2020 and 2021 annuals: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1kThsXYyDo6jfql72KEJtew8_CwhS2RIO?usp=sharing > eight page annual checklist Yeah, I was offered the choice between following the Mooney checklist and the base FAR part 43 annual checklist and I chose the former one, of course. > Stepping back and looking at your first two years more holistically, who did your pre-purchase, was it thorough, what condition was the plane in at that time and did you take care of a lot of squawks on the list at purchase? Are the things at this annual all surprises or did you know most of them were coming? Surprises at annual should be minimal if an owner is proactive throughout the year and you had a thorough pre-buy. Great questions. Prepurchase was done at Sarasota Avionics in Florida. There were a bunch of minor squawks at that time. More majorly they mentioned the prop being past recommended OH calendar time and 500hr mag inspection past due, which I used to negotiate the price down (and had the mags inspected and one OHed). I did my first annual at Top Gun and the second one at Absolute Aero. Funnily, I think both shops are pretty thorough, but they found a disjoint set of expensive things to focus on. Almost certainly the surface corrosion that Absolute Aero squawked was there when Top Gun did the first annual, but Top Gun did not even squawk it. > It's the second 10% annual that would have me looking elsewhere. My advice would be to try a different shop for #3. Maybe changing shops explains the new set of discrepancies. But it sounds like the second set of discrepancies are also pretty important and worth addressing, so I don't know what it means that the first shop missed them.. I'm an engineer but the fake kind (software, lol), so I don't know much about mechanical things. I am very interested to learn more about how my airplane works. I've been meaning to do an owner-assisted annual but circumstances this year made it impossible.

Hello friends, My 1983 M20J is finishing up its second annual since it's been in my possession. The first annual cost me $8,900. This year's annual will end up costing me $11,000. This includes about $1500 worth of fixing surface corrosion in rudder/elevator push/pull rods, landing gear tubular structures, landing gear retract rod. I rejected (for now) $1500 worth of firewall-forward fuel/oil hoses squawked as "stiff" and recommended to be replaced with fireproofed ones, as well as $1500 worth of overhauling a leaky prop governor. The base annual is $3510. The rest is a long list of smallish items that add up. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area which makes everything slightly more expensive, but this seems a bit crazy to me. I'm especially surprised to discover $10,000 worth of airplane "breaking" over the course of a year. I thought after the first annual where I'd be picking up some slack for deferred maintenance from the previous owner, the second annual would be just a bunch of minor things. I'm curious what other folks' experiences are. Anybody else paying ~10% of the value of the airplane every year in annual maintenance? BTW, I have a detailed list of squawks from the maintenance shop. I hesitate to post it publicly for anyone on the internet to see, but happy to share with anyone in private messages if you think you can help me understand what is going on - are the shops over-squawking, or is it just the high base rate ($135/hr). Adi

The Director of Maintenance came back to me and said that after some consultation, he's OK with the stop drill. (Side note - I didn't know it had already been stop drilled - whoever did it did a neat job, apparently it's filled with silicone.) Thanks all for your input. Very interesting to learn what your guys' thought processes are about where to look for info about what's allowed/not allowed, and what is a safety issue and what is not.

2 years later and after a successful thorough annual in 2020, the new shop I’ve taken it to this year squawked it as an airworthiness issue. As I negotiate with them, does anyone have a reference to either a crack disqualifying an airplane from airworthiness altogether or the opposite? I’ve also heard a stop drill could require rebalancing or being considered a major alteration, any reference to that? edit: I haven’t had anyone stop drill it nor has it progressed beyond what it looked like I’m the original post. edit2: I do apologise, @EricJ actually provided the reference when I originally posted the question: AC 43.13 Par. 4-59. That's still pretty scant unfortunately, I don't see any guidance there on what is acceptable and what is not. Maybe it's a judgement call?

Oh, I thought I had posted an update! My bad. What eventually happened was that the shop took off the entire exhaust system and shipped it to a specialized company for overhaul. During overhaul they found some tiny cracks that would only open up when warmed up (probably contributing to the flaky reproduction steps / getting worse during runup). After they shipped the overhauled system (took 2+ weeks) it seemed okay - it would still sometimes go to 10-15-20ppm on the ground, seemed to depend mostly on wind, but never the high values I used to get before. Then I bounced a landing a few months later. It wasn't a terrible bounce but it must have dislocated something because on the next run-up I got higher than normal PPM values, in the 80 range. I got the plane looked at again and the mechanics found that one of the ball joints in the exhaust system had become non-round and was leaking CO. They shipped part of the system to the overhaul company again and they fixed it free of charge. I haven't had big problems after that, but it's still not perfect. The worst I've seen it go is to about 50ppm on the ground, opening the door vents the CO and it doesn't come back. Most of the time it stays <15ppm on the ground. I am still getting 10-20ppm when I trail or open the cowl flaps. This can be reproduced reliably - in climb, I get 10-20; in cruise, if I have cowl flaps closed, I get 0; if I trail the cowl flaps, I get ~10+. I cross-checked this reading with another Sensorcon instrument and they seem to be correct. I moved the Sensorcon above my main instruments to be in my primary scan and given that I can cruise with 0ppm, I've accepted this for now. I plan to get another pressure test at the next annual. The cowl flaps affecting the reading so much seems very relevant to me, but I don't know what to make of it. If anyone has any idea what to check, I would appreciate it.

Thank you all again. Thought I'd update this thread: I asked my mechanic to disable the bypass switch altogether. As expected, the airspeed safety continued to work but with no possibility of bypassing it. We placarded the switch INOP and still looking for a replacement, but with less urgency. The shop double-checked the rest of the gear-related equipment as well. My mechanic said that "someone had crossed the wires on the airspeed safety switch" and he redid them correctly per the Mooney diagram. No idea how that ended up happening, how the gear system still worked for a while with crossed wires, or if this explains my in flight failure to extend the gear which seems like it shouldn't happen due to a bypass switch failure. They couldn't tell me explicitly how the switch was miswired so I can't do that logical exercise either. In case it helps or is of interest to someone, I followed the diagram and annotated where each of the relevant wires go, here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zgGbb877mLz4R1QMP-nNIEX-hJ_EaWlM?usp=sharing. If someone from the future visits this thread, remember this is for a 1983 J, your schematic may be different