SKI

I'm new to flying Mooney's so certainly no expert but airspeed is the most important thing for landing any airplane. Too much or too little and you're going to have a bad day. I got my PPL at a 2800' strip so I always pay extra attention to airspeed. My PPL CFI would start saying " Airspeed. Runway " Over and Over once abeam the numbers until touchdown. It still goes through my head now over and over. Everyone makes mistakes and I'm certainly not perfect. I hangar my J at a 5500' strip and one evening I wanted to see what happened if I came over the numbers at 85 Kts. I was shocked at how long it floated. Definitely gave me more incentive to make sure to be on speed.

I did mine on my J model recently. I bought the seals from GeeBeeAeroproducts. I probably had 12-15 hours labor. The seals are precut and required VERY little trimming but definitely some trimming and fiddling around. If your handy I'd order the seal kit from Guy and do it yourself. If you want someone to do it, I'd say $1500.00 probably isn't too bad.

I bought a J model in December with 350 Hr. TT no RG and no IR. 130K Hull value and my premium was just over $5K for the first year. I'm based at KIDI and the runway there is over 5000'. I'm sure that probably helped a lot. Just giving you some fairly current real world numbers. I knew insurance would be painful year one but that's the price to play. If you want to fly a Mooney you'll just have to suck it up at some point and get year one out of the way.

That makes sense. He did say he used it to get to his place in Florida a few times a year.

So I bought my J from Indy Air Sales in December. This was my transition training instructor's plane. I saw it for sale a month or so ago and texted him about it. He didn't elaborate on why he was selling but he definitely loved that plane and couldn't say enough good about it when we were flying off my hours. I could tell he wasn't crazy about selling but I'm guessing something came up in his life. He was an older guy. Good luck and hopefully it gives you many years of fun. Their great planes and I think my J lands easier than my Cherokee.

If your I/A will sign off on it then I would do it myself. Plus you would have redundancy with the handle safety wired and a pipe plug installed when you didn't need the hose barb for draining your oil. Some of the regs are nonsense for 60+ year old tractor engine technology but it is what it is.

Would it work, yes. Would it work better and cheaper, probably. Will your I/A sign off on it at annual, Doubtful. There's the answer unless your I/A will sign off on it you can't really do it.

So I recently bought a J. My transition instructor tried something the first day at lunch and it didn't work. So in my hotel that night I was searching Mooneyspace and found the below procedure around here somewhere. It's dirt simple and has worked every time I have tried it. I'm usually running in 4-6 blades. #1 Mixture, Prop and Throttle all full forward for 10-12 seconds. No Boost pump. #2 Mixture Full lean and Throttle about 1000-1200 RPM (Basically cracked open 1/8-3/16 on mine) #3 Crank till it catches then advance Mixture. #4 Smile and breath A sigh of Relief you didn't just kill your starter and battery.

I bought one off a member here about 6 weeks ago. My hangar is also slightly up hill and only 40' wide so I needed a controlled way to get my J in. I paid $1500 and I think new they are about $2200. Even if you need to pay the $2200 I highly recommend them. They are worth every penny in my opinion. Hanger rash on a wingtip or a screwed up back is way worse than paying the money in the grand scheme of aviation.

I flew from Pennsylvania to the Bahamas twice last year. I had a blast both times. I'm not really a resort type of guy and went mostly to fly fish. I stayed on both Andros and Long Island in January. When I went back in June I stayed with a Bahamian family I met on Andros in January. The locals are really friendly on the out islands if you want a real Bahamian experience and not just sitting by the pool at a resort. You'll never find cool adventures unless you go looking for them. I HIGHLY recommend the Bahamas.

I've recently transitioned to a new to me J as well. All my time was in 172's and Cherokee's. Exactly the same thoughts as you about being heavy in pitch on rotation. My instructor said it's normal as well as the others here. I got in the habit of raising the gear then raise the flaps right after the gear and trim once for the cruise speed you want and away you go.

I think Eric meant make sure the #1 wire from the mag does in fact go to the #1 cylinder ect for all cylinders. That was my initial thought as well.

Regarding the left wing heavy situation are you flying solo? How's your fuel load balanced? I've never flown a Mooney but on my Cherokee both of those seem to matter. Flying solo you have all your weight left of centerline and nothing to counter act it on the right. Add to that you may have more fuel in the left tank vs the right tank. Fuel makes a bigger difference since it's further outboard of the centerline. Like my A&P buddy always says "Never go straight for the jugular" Meaning try simple, easy, logical things first before you go with a more invasive and extreme approach. Just throwing out something to think about before going through the hassle of messing with the rigging.

There's a place in Texas called Aero Comfort. He does interiors and leather wraps Mooney yokes. I've never seen his work in person but pretty much everyone who ever posts about his work says it's amazing. I think he's usually pretty busy but it would be worth reaching out for a quote. His website is pretty good and you can check out his work there. aerocomfort.com

All of what A64 says is pretty much true. I've worked in machining/fabrication for 28 years. I'm not building a Vans but I am building a Bearhawk Patrol. I get my Lazer cut parts done 1/16" undersized then use a piloted double margin drill and open them up to size. A Lazer cut hole or edge if you could magnify it looks similar to an edge cut with a cutting torch. It's kind of jagged. The process is essentially the same. Melting metal from the top and blowing it out the bottom of the sheet. Lazer is MUCH more precise but you get the idea. I doubt they pierced the holes on the perimeter, Everyone knows not to do that and it would have left a really noticeable defect. They probably pierced on center but moved straight out in one axis to the perimeter then started the circle cut. All CNC machines pause when they change direction (I own 5 of them). It's only a millisecond but it's there. So that millisecond pause on the perimeter probably caused a overburn spot and they probably led off the perimeter at that same spot to go back to center to end the cut so even more overburn. It would only be a few thousandths but when you start dimpling which stretches the material it's tearing at that imperfection. My mills will do the same thing because the endmills deflect, VERY minimal but it's there. They should have led in and out using a spiraling tool path. That eliminates that hard change in direction and millisecond pause. That's my thoughts as a CNC guy but I'm not an airplane manufacturer.