AndreiC

I second the recommendation for Rudy’s. They overhauled my MP/FP indicator for a reasonable price and very quick turnaround. Communication was excellent.

What was the mixture setting when you saw this? What fuel flow? In my 1970 E-model that 420 would definitely catch my attention and cause me to investigate. If the reading is correct, something is not right with that cylinder.

Yes, and it was no issue at all. The adhesive on the velcro-like thing is strong enough to keep the carpet down, but not strong enough to not come off. Of course, it’s only been there for 2 or 3 years. How it will be in 10 we’ll see.

I used 3 or 4 strips of 3M Dual Lock 1" wide from Home Depot, laid down across the width of the carpet. Worked great for me, not moving at all.

I cannot tell when the CB popped. The sequence of events was: takeoff, gear switch up, gear goes up normally (from what I can tell), "GEAR UP" light goes on, fly to destination, move gear switch to down position, nothing happens, check CB, CB is popped, push CB in, gear goes down and "GEAR DOWN" light goes on. (The gear lever was already in the down position when I pushed the CB in, so the gear started moving right away.) So it could have popped either at the end of the retraction procedure (which would explain why nothing happened), or when I first tried to put the gear down. I would suspect perhaps the former as more likely, but without high confidence. The reason being that when I put the lever to the down position I did not hear or feel any action at all, not like the motor struggled to do something. But it was also in flight, in bumpy air, so it could very well be that I did not hear it.

Here is a picture of the actuator I have.

It is a 1970 E model. As I said above, it started life with a Dukes gear actuator which actually failed and resulted in the only gear up the plane has had, sometime in the early '90s. At that time the gear system was replaced with one of the units that, if I understand correctly, was being installed on the J's of the time. I heard either the name Plessey or Eaton associated with it (not sure if these are not the same company). It is the one that has the manual gear system installed between the seats, instead of being on the wall by the pilot. I wrote above all the gear maintenance that I am aware of in the last 3-400 hours.

Yes, it was the one that has a small metal tab that allows you to easy pull it out in case you need to do a manual gear extension. I know that my gear system was replaced sometime in the '90s from the original Dukes mechanism to an Eaton system, with the manual gear extension mechanism on the floor between the pilot and copilot seats. The no-back spring was changed about 600 hours ago by the previous user. I am not sure if the system has received any other maintenance since then, other than whatever is done during routing annuals (gear swings, and I know for sure that at least 3 years ago, when I bought the plane, the preloads were not quite right and were adjusted -- I paid the mechanic who did the prebuy and found this to adjust them).

I'll talk to my mechanic about this, but thought to get the collective wisdom of the group too.

Two days ago I flew a long leg from near Madison, WI to Nashville. When I got close to JWN and put the gear switch down, nothing happened. The red “gear up” stayed on, and nothing else. Obviously I was not happy, and asked the tower at JWN to let me circle overhead at 2000 AGL to debug, which they obliged. After a couple of minutes getting the plane set up, I checked the circuit breaker, and it was popped. Pushing it in made the gear work as it should and I landed uneventfully. Yesterday I flew back to Madison without any incidents, with two gear cycles (two landings). What should I do now? Continue as if nothing happened? Or should I put the plane on jacks and cycle the gear a few times to see if something unusual is going on? Something else? Thanks.

About the straight weight oil: I generally change my oil once in November and once in April. Temps around here range -15*F - +70*F Nov-Apr and 35*F-85*F Apr-Nov. If I were to switch to straight weight oils from the 20W50 I use now, what weights should I use in winter vs summer?

It really surprised me, I was 2500 feet AGL (where I wanted to stop) so fast I blew through it. (I was VFR so it did not matter.)

For what it's worth, here is my experience. Before having my Mooney, for 20+ years I have had Piper Cherokees with Lycoming O320 or O360 engines. I always used Aeroshell 15W50 because that's what I was taught during my training. Never had any issues and my last engine was running strong when I sold the plane at 1750 hours SMOH. About a year after buying the Mooney I visited Poplar Grove Airmotive (well known engine builders), and they scoffed at my use of Aeroshell. They said that many relatively recent tests showed that it is not up to par, and that Phillips XC 20W50 is better. So I've switched to it, and so far it seems to be fine (but as I said before, in my previous 1400 hours with Aeroshell I never had an issue either).

Well, here is a report on how it went today (OAT 6*F). After a night plugged in, the oil was at 67*F and the CHTs at 40*F. I ran a small ceramic heater (1500W) inside the cabin for 20 minutes before pulling the plane out of the hangar. With these preparations I was comfortable in the cabin with just a sweater and the engine fired up completely normally. The only "issue" I had was that due to the super dense air I had to throttle back a fair bit to stay out of the yellow arc on the airspeed (at 3500 feet the DA was close to sea level). But 24/24 worked well, even though I had to run ROP (10.2 gph per POH) to keep the CHTs barely in the green. The oil temp was fine though, after covering half the oil cooler with aluminum tape.

For 10 years I had a Piper Cherokee tied down outside in snowy Wisconsin. About 5 times each winter I'd have to go after a snow storm to get the snow off. Took about 15-30 minutes every time, not a big deal. I used a tool bought from an auto parts store consisting of a large (maybe 18" wide?) paddle/scraper made of semi-hard foam, attached to a stick. Allows you to pull off the snow to the ground, without scratching the paint or windows. Will take 99% of the snow off, and the sun will do the rest.