anthem4arequiem

Absolutely agree. That was a process foul on our side. However, I also think it is a no-no to put safety wire on a filter if you didn't check it. And I am also scratching my head on how the leak wasn't found on the run-up on the ground. According to my A&P, either it didn't leak on the ground because there isn't enough pressure to leak around the gasket, or there was a major oil leak and they just never found the source for sure. But yes. I admit we screwed up with putting on the oil filter.

Aero Accessories.

I know I am not here a lot, I tend to fall into a "black hole" when I dive into forums so I have been trying to avoid them. But I do appreciate the advice when I can get it. And sorry, this got a lot longer than intended. I have been using the same A&P since I bought my Mooney in 2020. And I will say up front that he does amazing work when he does the work. I believe the issue I find is that every year at annual, there is a new employee there that is a couple of weeks on the job. Usually the A&P is there as well, but this year he was only there on the last day after my plane had been there for two weeks. That is my speculation as to why the quality of work went down. My 50% partner and I always try and do owner assisted annual. Not only to bring the costs down but to just know the entire plane better. We typically get a hotel and work 2 days on the plane, removing all the panels and doing the "routine" items. Then we go home and the crew finished everything up. The first gripe was when we took the spinner off. It had not been off since last annual and was put back on when we were not there. The ring that the prop balance weight goes on was bent. I do not know what happened, but the last time it was exposed was in this shop. This annual took 2 weeks due to the 500 magneto inspection being due, so shipping time on that was the long pole in the tent. There is a whole other saga with the magneto (died 1.5 hours after install), but I am putting that all on the mag shop. When I finally picked up the plane I did a quick flight over the airfield to check everything out. In the air, I noticed my fuel flow was displaying zero on my engine monitor. I guess I should have caught that on the ground, but it is not part of my normal prefight and run up (it is now) to cycle through the pages to get that number. So I landed and taxied back to the shop. When I got out I noticed a lot of oil, especially for a 15 minute flight. It was 1/2 a quart lower on the dipstick than when I started after I let the oil settle for a couple of hours while I was there. So the new apprentice A&P and I took the cowling off to see what was going on. The first thing I saw was a (red) wire pulled out of a Molex connector that is pretty much right in front of your face on the pilot side. This obviously didn't come off in flight, and looking on the runup and checkout sheet, there was no entry for fuel flow, so they just didn't finish the checklist. It had an entry for the drop off initial check, but not the after annual check. The next thing I noticed was the damage to the footwells on my firewall. We had them replace the engine mounts during annual. My partner and I were going to do this on the second day while at the shop, but the guy that was there asked us not to because we would mess it up and he would do it right. I can see the results. The pilot side I could live with, but the copilot made me really angry, especially when we see that the bolt is almost rounded off too. This plane has had the mounts replaced 4 times in it's life. This is the first time the firewall was damaged. But at this point I am just trying not to get angry and wanting to get my plane home. First, it was the 2 hours to replace the Molex connecter. Then troubleshooting revealed the source of my oil leak was the oil filter. After cutting the safety wire off we were able to tighten it about 1/4 turn by had before putting a wrench on it. I will claim that this is a bit on my partner and I. My partner put the oil filter on hand tight and left a note that it needs torqued and safety wired on the annual checklist. Since it was only 20 degrees in the shop he wanted it to be a bit warmer so that the rubber would make a good seal. The A&P told me that you can't catch that on runup since there isn't enough pressure to get around the gasket. This is when I was also told the story of how there was a major oil leak on the initial engine runup (I actually found oil on my tail, it was that bad) because the prop governor line remained disconnected after the engine mount replacement. Later this story changed. But at the time that was used as the excuse as to why they may not have caught the oil filter leak since there was already a huge oil mess and they didn't suspect 2 leaking components. After getting back home, I looked at everything on the airplane (one more item on that further down) and found two spinner screws had backed out, almost falling off, so not tightened at annual. Then I had my magneto die next flight and had to send it back out to CA for warranty. Like I said, this is not the fault of my A&P. It was discovered that one of the capacitors for the magneto (I have a single dual mag) was for a 6 cylinder, left and right had different part numbers. The mag shop replaced both capacitors for free since they sent the wrong one last time, but that is something I would hope my A&P should have noticed when he installed them last time. When the magnetos came back, I had a local A&P install them. As soon as he looked at the plane, before he even touched it, he asks "didn't you just get out of annual?" I say "yes, why?" and he just points. I said "I am missing some nuts" and he says "no, they are there" During annual, they replaced the gasket at the end of the push rod tube and had to take that cover off. The final gripe. I can't prove this happened at annual, since I discovered it after I got home, but there was no event that I know of that could have caused it. But when I looked the whole plane over after getting home I found this gouge. Starboard wing just behind the tie down, or jack point. Whatever made this gouge went front and back several times, and also moved left and right a few times. It was not something that happened with the plane in motion. To me it looks like the jack was left under the plane when it was being repositioned. My approach was to let my A&P make things right. He knew about everything that had happened. But instead I ended up getting the most expensive annual bill I had ever had (even after discounts). He did warranty the magneto, meaning he paid the bill for the local A&P to install it (he actually rounded up to $200). The original invoice had 5 hours and 5 minutes for the Magneto install, he reduced that to 4 hours. The original invoice also that 15 hours 25 minutes to replace the engine mounts, which he reduced to 7 hours. Taking the original labor from $5,523.82 down to $3,927.12. I am purposefully not including the cost of parts and fees. But that leaves 26 hours and 13 minutes of labor for doing the annual checklist (for owner assisted), and then 14.5 hours for repairs (after the discount applied). Here is the part that bugs me. He is not willing to budge on the bill. I got an estimate on what it would take to repair the footwells, and he just keeps saying "no, that is normal for Mooneys" and supplied pictures of two planes in which he had replaced the mounts. There was damage on those planes, but not nearly as bad as my copilot side. And like I said, both of them are planes he did the work on. For the items that caused safety issues (the oil leak, spinner screws, and nuts backing off on the cover) he just replied "The issues with the lock nuts, spinner screws, and transducer wiring were embarrassing quality mistakes and we are learning from those to reduce the chance of it happening again - and importantly, we corrected quality issues for you immediately." He did fix the oil leak and transducer wiring before I took off, but the other two were on me (and my local A&P). I see 3 issues that could have killed me and he just calls them embarrassing learning opportunities. At this point I should caveat the fact that my partner wanted to find a new A&P after last annual when we opened up the cowling to trace an oil leak (first time since last annual) and found a pair of plyers on top of the engine and the bottom spark plug on cylinder 4 was loose, less than finger tight. In a follow up email, he also said that he gave me a discount for the oil leak (which I can't find on the invoice) and said "(employee) did say the line on the governor was tight, he loosened it again and then retightened it. I'm not sure where the oil was coming from more, the governor or the oil filter, but I removed the extra hour for that part." Like I said, not reflected on the invoice, but now the story changed from the oil leak was from them leaving the prop governor line off, to it may from the oil filter all along and they know how to tighten lines. They just didn't fix it until I went flying. I am mad about the safety issues and footwell damage. I want my footwell fixed. But also realizing it may be time to just walk away and close this chapter of my life. Looking to see if anyone has had a similar issue and advice on what I should do.

I believe mine is capable of being slaved, but has never been. So not.

A Pair of 275s is on our short list but don't have the $ right now (getting close). Which is why I want to find aa used HSI, hold us over until we save up (50/50 ownership). But it sounds like yours will be available in short order, a couple of weeks is easy to do. How much? Feel free to DM.

Looking for a Century HSI, I believe it is the NSD-360A. Mine is slowly dying.

I brush mine once a week, and it takes about an hour to get him done. So not really an answer to your question but brush him well before the flight.

As promised, pictures from my Aussie's first flight. He was not thrilled, but liked it a lot better than when I left him on the ground and went up without him! And of course he moved right when I took a picture of us both and I didn't notice.

It is at willow run. I was looking at the MSC in Leeper thinking that might be a good option. Seller recommended a place in Ann Arbor but I am hesitant to use a seller suggested mechanic.

Can't agree more! One of the things I am most excited about in buying is the ability to take my Ausie up with me (reltals frown on that kind of thing). I promise to post pictures of his first flight!

So last time I asked for prybuy advice MS Delivered! The M20C I was looking at didn't work out, but since then an old acquaintance of mine found me and asked if I would like to partner up on an M20J. We found one near Detroit and have a contract. It is a really nice looking plane with only 359 SMOH but the overhaul was in 2006 and in the past 4 years or so the logs only show about 3-5 hours a year. It has been stored in a temperature controlled hanger though. So we (my partner and I) are looking for a rather serious and thorough prebuy with an annual since it is due in the spring. Since we are in MD, we have been talking to Byron as suggested and wow, this guy is amazing! Our hope was to bring the plane down here so he can do the whole thing for us, but the seller / broker wants to keep the plane within 150nm. The next thought is to pay for Byron's time to travel up to the plane, but that only works if we have a shop for him to work in and hopefully all the panels removed. So, can MS deliver again? Any excellent Mooney shops in that area to do a through inspection or let us bring in our own mechanic? Thanks in advance

Beautiful looking plane. Wish I had some extra dough but right now this is just out of my price range. I also think that it is awesome that you gave MS first grabs.

Thanks for the good gouge. Sounds like I need to call Nick at KLWM. N87 is about half way between us, so that may also be a good spot. I am ok with paying a bit more to get less surprises. I appreciate all the advice. I can't believe how much help I have been getting on this forum!

Thank Rusty. I have been to EZF a few times (had family there). I will be at 2W6. Hopefully we will run into each other once I get something!

Great site. Glad to support it.

Thanks for the example. There are a few Mooneys at local airport. I talked to the shops there and they bot said that Mooneys are harder to work on so expect to pay more, making me think I wanted to go to someone else. You are close by, I would love to chat!

That one at W00 is probably the place by bay bridge that someone was telling me about (not too far). Is going to a MSC the thing to do, or are there some A&Ps out there who better?

First of all hello, I am new to the forum and the Mooney community. I have been reading a lot of good info on here before creating an account. Sorry if this has been asked before, I searched but couldn't find the answer. I am looking at buying an M20C in Massachusetts while I am in Southern Maryland. I was hoping to get some suggestions on a mechanic to do the prebuy for me, and someone to talk to in the MD area. I was told that there might be someone around the bay bridge area but I have not had any luck finding them. Thank you in advance for any help. I am also open to any other advice as this is the first aircraft I am purchasing.