redbaron1982

I did remove the belly panel, one end of the cable is connected to the antenna, and it goes into the belly. The coax has some loops there tied to the structure of the airplane with time tie wraps and never gets to the tail cone section. I didn't find any avionics wiring going into the tail cone section from within the belly. From a picture I have of when the interior was removed, all the avionics wiring runs along the pilot side wall (between the interior and exterior skin). So my understanding is that I need to remove the interior (at least the pilot side), bring the coax up from the belly and run it back into the tail cone section so I can reach the remote DME unit and reconnect it.

Thanks a lot for the super detailed explanation and tips! I was surely underestimating the task, my idea was to remove everything in one weekend, work at home during the week to paint and fix (as needed) the panels, and then the next weekend to reinstall everything. But I see how things can start taking longer if anything breaks, or if I found something that needs additional care. My main objectives for doing this are: * Repaint all the panels, they seem to be in decent shape from cracks, but they are yellowish so fresh paint would greatly improve the look. * Reinstall the panels correctly. Now, for instance, the black kick panels are kind of loose. If you push them (without much force) against the exterior skin, you can see them move at least 1 inch. * The trim around the windows (silver strip) is not straight at all. I'm not sure if when they install the plastics the last time they over-tightened the screws and deformed the trim. I would like to improve that as well. * One very small, but big, detail, I guess during the wing spar corrosion repair, the shop didn't connect again the DME antenna. So my DME now is INOP. The coax is lying in the belly. I understand this cable is routed through the passenger side wall, and I need to remove the side panels to reinstall it. According to the previous owner, SB 208 was performed, he sent me pictures of the interior all removed and the insulation removed.

Thanks all for the replies. I will give it a try next weekend!

I was going through the service and maintenance manual hoping to find a guide on how to remove the interior plastic trims (mines are not in great shape and want to patch and paint them) but I couldn't find anything. Am I looking in the wrong place? I want to know the correct process as the trims now don't seem to be correctly attached/installed, and would like to reinstall them the correct way.

My (little) experience with flying IMC is that what is most confusion if not the lack of visual cues, but having a lot of invalid ones. If you look at the window while in IMC it's hardly an homogenous all white (or grey) view. You see the edges of the clouds moving quickly around you and for me that's much worse than having no cues at all. Much worse if you get the reflection of the anti collision lights. Sometimes I said to my self that if I ever get confused while flying in IMC I'm going to put on the foggles to block any outside reference and get focused on the instruments.

Yeah, I have a GI275. I've posted the links to the analysis above. Today I did another runup and at 2000rpm the engine run rough on the left mag, dropping 200rpm. At 1200rpm on the left mag it almost dies and all egts go down. Both tests with the right mag are successful.

I'm attaching pictures of all the plugs as they looked today after I removed them. I don´t see any that looks fouled. None of them had any lead deposit. I also measured the resistance. All massive were at 1.6k. All fine wires were at 1k. Do you see anything with the plugs? Thanks for all your help guys.

Do you think is possible for brand new plugs to foul 5 minutes after install? I installed the new plugs, start the engine, wait for the oil temp to rise above 75F and then did a runup that was showing a 200rpm drop.

The only capacitor I know is installed in a DeLorean... (just kidding, condensers became capacitors in my life when I started college)

Unrelated but related... what do you guys think about SavvyMx service? After reading Mike Busch books I was expecting top-notch service, and what I'm getting is far from that. I'm asking about this issue to them, and they insist that this has to be spark fouling. How likely is that is spark fouling that doesn't change after changing all spark plugs with new ones?

I do have. This is the last in-flight mag check, in the comments I state at what time I start the mag check. https://apps.savvyaviation.com/flights/shared/flight/7536148/a6d61bbe-f393-4d68-8c82-93a8f919fbb2 It seems that the notes are not shared, this are the notes: At 25:40 I do just one sweep from ROP to LOP. I was operating >70% so I didn't want to do more than one sweep. At 28:00 minutes I started the mag check at ~75F LOP. Engine operation on the left mag was not ok, although it was "smooth" it was misfiring a bit. The right mag was ok. The issue with the left mag has been happening in the last couple of flights. I cleaned/gapped all plugs, but that did not fix it. This was yesterday runup, I couldn't make much out of it: https://apps.savvyaviation.com/flights/shared/flight/7572608/4d5fbacc-345f-4b62-9832-a1ad7135c6c4

I want to clarify, spark plugs are all brand new. I installed them yesterday at 6pm, did the runup at 620pm... left mag failed after the engine was fired up. So no fouling, lead build-up, or anything. I lean toward either a bad lead(s) or the mag itself.

For the last months (3 or 4) I have been having intermittent issues with the left mag. The issues are grouped into either in-flight mag check failure or runup mag check failure. Every time the issue was "fixed" by removing/cleaning/gapping the spark plugs. The issues are always engine running rough, never complete loss of power. Yesterday, by recommendation of Savvy, I replaced all spark plugs (they had roughly 400 hours). I put fine wires on the bottom and massive ones on the top holes. I did a run up and again, left mag was not good, with a 200 rpm drop. Right mag is always ok. I have the dual mag Lycoming IO360-A3B6D. Any thoughts? Could this be due to bad leads or the mag itself? The mags were overhauled 40 hours ago by Kelly.

Yeah, this year I "officially" got my Mooney around June, and after that I had some issues with it. My target is to get 10 hours / month average. So hopefully next I will get to 150 Mooney time and I might get also the Commercial license. I expect there to see a significant decrease in price.

Today I got the renewal quote and it came at 5k for a Mooney M20J with 175k haul value. The aircraft is hangared. I'm PP instrument rated with ~200 hours total and 33 in make and model. Last year was 6.5k with 0 time in retractable/make and model. So it did go down, but I was expecting a more steep reduction, like to 3k or something like that. I got this through Airspeed Insurance Agency broker and the quote is from Global Aerospace. Is it reasonable? Any recommendations?

I guess it is not for an aircraft with a registration from Argentina... sadly Argentina is more aligned with China/Russia rather than the US/Europe.

I'm originally from Argentina and a couple from there traveled around the world in a Mooney M20J, registration LV-AZZ. If not the longest trip, it as to be close.

I already did so, but had to delete the post because fellow MSers didn't want to hear negative things about some shops.

Yes.

I'm not an expert. I'm a fairly new owner and have been boroscoping my engine every time I take out a spark plug. My main concern with your pictures is that there seems to be some corrosion/pitting on the cylinder walls. Do you know if the engine had some lengthy periods of time without running?

Make sure that it is sitting correctly in the tray. A few fights ago I had an issue with an old BK and it was fixed after making sure that it was sitting correctly in the tray.

Kind of a related question, does anyone have a relatively recent estimate (cost, time) for painting an M20J/M20K? A good quality job, but a basic scheme, white base with two color stripes. Something like this:

Hey, thanks for the offer! I will start by taking mine out, inspecting it, testing it in hot water to make sure it opens and close fine. If everything seems ok, I will reinstall it and try to find anything else. FWIW my last, first, and only oil analysis since I owned the airplane has detected 0 water.

Is not possible for the vernatherm to be locked in the "closed" position? That is my thought. I know it works opposite to car thermostats.

I'm quite sure. Before starting it reads same value as OAT. During climb it gets to 180F or 190F. I mean, values look reasonable.