Fritz1

Bob Bramble at aerolabs in Kentucky is really good with them, he repaired mine, give him a call

I use two of the airframe interface kits, one for for each battery, I think the the plugs are called Anderson plugs. I only have one battery minder and parallel the batteries when charging with an external battery minder Y-interface. My batteries are Concords that have the same age. I use the minder when I am working on the avionics in the hangar, with the batteries externally paralled I can draw down both batteries which gives 20 Ah. My Anderson plugs are mounted in the TKS door. I have seen them mounted on the hat rack or on the rear cabin wall. The battery minder gives you about 4 Amps, in combination with 20 Ah from the batteries this gives you enough power to run the avionics for about 2h depending on your draw.

looks pretty solid, a mechanical lock is definitely important, hydraulics can leak down, I bought a set of used Meyer jacks from a hangar neighbor, think they are 22" to fit under the Mooney wings, the Lasar combined jackpoints / tiedowns work very well, the Meyer Jacks have wheels so they move around easily, worthwhile to jack the bird up if it does not fly for a while to take the load off the rubber gear pucks, they last longer then

How did you get the overhead lights removed? Is it just a bayonet lock? two of my four lights stopped working, think just the bulbs burnt out, did not replace them jet because I thought the headliner has to be taken down

Sitting in one is the proof of the pudding, if nothing else pans out call C&W in Caldwell, they are a service center and always have a couple of Mooneys in the shop.

I bought a factory door seal three or four years ago but never installed it, glued a strip of 1/4" hollow windlace material from the aviation isle of home depot to the straight bottom section of the door seal where there was a small leak and nursed the rest of the seal with rubber conditioner, installing the new seal is a tricky job as I hear, just did not muster the gumption since mine stopped leaking with minimum effort. Since the door is a fragile contraption does the small inflation pressure of inflatable seal cause any warping of the door and excessive pressure on the door locks?? thoughts??

find out what the shop did remotely close to the aileron linkage, have them take belly pan and aileron linkage access panels on bottom of wing off, have one guy operate the yoke in the cockpit and the other watch from below, check if the aileron linkage catches any of the wiring in the footwells, let everybody know how this plays out!

think most shops budget 30h for the inspection according to the Mooney inspection guidelines, fixing stuff comes on top of that, duration is typically determined by parts availability if parts are needed

Ah, this sounds like we are onto something, which ELT with GPS feed would be better??

Depends on how much it droops, maybe gear door can be tightened to close better, go see the technician and have him explain

It states in the ACK manual not to hook up an antenna for testing the g-switch but it does not state in the manual that hooking up an antenna will damage the transmitter, I just spoke to my A&P, he most likely has blown the ELT in his Baron doing the same thing

yes, I do have the remote panel, now I know what it its good for!

Finished annual yesterday and tested ACK E-04 ELT, dead, only one year old, had replaced dead one last year, tested old and newer ELT battery, plenty of power, scratched my head, called ACK in Santa Clara, first thing the technician asked me was: did you hook up a portable antenna for the test? yes we did, A&P removed ELT, hooked up portable antenna and performed test of g-switch. ACK technician stated that this blows an amplifier and pointed out that it was stated on the unit not to hook up portable antenna, not written on my old unit, not explicitly stated in manual that this will blow amp, felt great relief, ordered another unit from Spruce since I need bird back in the air and will have the two blown units repaired at ACK. Bottom line: do not hook up portable antenna to ACK E-04 ELT to test the g-switch since this will damage an amp!

once the panels are properly wetted and the system has no leaks the low pressure light will go off on high after about 2 min at 70F, may take longer when ambient temp is higher. Aircraft with properly wetted panels will ooze fluid on the hangar floor whenever the ambient pressure drops, if aircraft stops oozing it is time to run the system and re-prime, kinda messy but the system really works reliably in moderate icing, panels are cleaned best with TKS fluid or water, the TKS fluid is not corrosive but washes away lubricant from whatever it touches, therefore it pays to put triflo on rod ends of flight controls and landing gear after running the system. In order to avoid this the monthly priming runs are best done on the ground. In spite of being not corrosive by itself the TKS fluid is to my best understanding hygroscopic, that means it absorbs water, I spent quite some time sealing the belly pan so the TKS fluid does not splash in there any more. During annual it is a good idea to find where TKS fluid gets into the tail, which is unavoidable, wipe everything dry and lube anything that moves, make sure the trim jackscrew is covered and well lubed

CS3204 tank sealant, clean treads with tap drill, will never leak again

For starters take a sponge and squeeze tks fluid into the dead spots, run a couple of gal of fluid on high flow on a cold day, eventually the low pressure light will go off, thereafter run 5-10 min every month on high until you see even flow along the panels

my engine does a little of that of top of the climb reducing from 34" to 30", maybe bootstraps by 2" a couple of times, it is less pronounced when I reduce power slowly without touching the propeller, go down to 30", slowly reduce rpm and then reduce boost again, I have replaced my wastegate last summer at about 750h because it was leaking oil, boot strapping is about the same, I put a lavish amount of mousemilk on both sides of the wastegate shaft with a small brush at every oil 25h change. Take the return spring off your wastegate and feel how much it is dragging. If it is not dragging at all you may want to clean all hoses connected to the turbo controller, if that does not help you may want to have the turbo controller overhauled, a piece of debris may be stuck in there or a part may be worn.

Fully agree with what pinecone said and emphasize checking for corrosion, it typically affects airplanes that were parked outside for a long time and/or lived in a corrosive climate for a long time. Corrosion typically affects the fuselage tubes under leaking side windows and/or the stub spar in the wing. Corrosion is about the only thing that can sink one of these tough airframes, i.e. a repair may cost more than the airframe is worth. The best way to find this show stopper is to pay somebody that knows these airframes well to look for it, state exactly where he looked and certify that there was none found in the entire airframe. Pretty much anything else can be fixed with $$. The prebuy is best done at the buyer's expense so that it can be called an annual after aircraft is purchased and identified squaks fixed. If aircraft not purchased it is money well spent and the next time around you already know much better where to look. Typically another 20-30% of the purchase price is spent on upgrades and repairs of a well maintained and frequently flown airplane in the first two years of ownership after purchase. All airplanes are works in progress, the journey is the destination, once they really sing, there is just nothing like it.

google salvage shops that have Mooney airframe parts and call them,

All sage advice, things may just take care of themselves, keep looking for a suitable Mooney while you are training, the search may take a couple of months and by then your training may be finished. During the search your criteria may change and your focus may sharpen. The airplane you may have been looking for may not exist and something may exist that you did not know was there. The journey is the destination.

prepare for what you may find, get delivery time and pricing on a rebuilt A3B6 if you are comfortable with the airframe, I a had half of a combo mag go out on me twice in a R182

That really sucks and means that Bravo engines can't be overhauled right now, unless Lycoming has a secret stash for their own rebuilt engines. Moving production does not inspire a whole lot of confidence in the first clamps that come out of the new facility, EATON is a large company and these clamps are peanuts to them. Rumor has it that GAMI is working on a clamp of their own for all kinds of turbo applications including the Bravo engine, call them and find out how far they are down the road. For GAMI these clamps can be a substantial business opportunity.

Got it, I inspect my three clamps at every 25h oil change, look at backside of turbo transition with borescope hoping to catch things before they get ugly, exhaust is weakest spot of otherwise pretty solid Bravo engine

Ah, can you post picture showing where your riveted clamp failed?

If your clamp is cracked you may find a serviceable clamp by calling salvage places that have Bravo airframe parts and find out where the turbo and the exhaust went, to my best understanding the riveted clamp can be re-torqued twice. Not the prettiest solution, based on finding a used clamp and being able to determine if it is serviceable.