AndreiC

I've been trying for a while to figure out my cruise power settings, a bit unsuccessfully (in part due to a faulty MP gauge which will be overhauled next week). But reading another thread got me thinking about a method that may work better, and I want to ask advice from people here. My goal is to run LOP and somewhere between 60% and 65% power. The way I've been doing it is to set a MP/RPM setting that should be close to 65%, then do the big pull, and use the EDM700 engine monitor to get to about 20 degrees LOP on all cylinders. Typically this gives me between 8 and 8.5 gph fuel flow at 7000 feet. But reading about the GAMI information shows that by doing this I run at only 55-58% power: for example, at 8gph, 8*13.7 = 109.6hp, which on a 200hp engine gives only 55% power. To me this means that I could increase the power setting at this point a bit. So my plan would be to do the following: when I am stabilized in cruise, do the same thing as before; after the engine settles at, say, 8gph, increase either the MP (if I can get more at that altitude) or the RPM until I get to a fuel burn of 9-9.5gph, while staying LOP. This should give me 60-65% power (so still safe for LOP operations), and I would not give up as much speed as I currently do. Does this sound reasonable?

This has been claimed. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I decided to send mine out to Rudy’s for overhaul, since the plane will anyway be down for a week or so for boost pump overhaul. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Since I know many people are upgrading to electronic gauges, I am wondering if anyone has a working mechanical fuel pressure and manifold pressure combo gauge that comes from an E/F or J model and that they no longer need. If yes, please DM me. (Of course, I’d pay a reasonable price for your gauge.) Here is a picture of mine, which is working but the MP shows low by about 1.5”. I’d rather not have to ground my plane for a couple of weeks while sending it out to be OH’d.

But the error rate is quite small on the altimeter. We're talking 20-30 feet. Here we are talking 1500 feet of disparity (1.5"). Tapping the gauge does nothing.

But then why would the gauge show wrong with the engine off?

The POH does not answer this question. That's because 25.5"/2400 is 80% power, and the manual says that over 75% you should run full rich (hence a 14.9 gph fuel flow). Not sure where else to look.

Can MP gauges be sent out for repair/overhaul? Any recommended shops?

Today I spent some time with my plane and ended up with three new questions: 1) My boost pump makes an awful racket when on. At idle I can hear it running even over the din of the engine, with noise cancelling headset on. It has a loud whining sound. Is it on its way out, and should be looked at, or is this normal? It makes fuel pressure as it should. 2) I suspect more and more that my manifold pressure shows about 1.5” less than it should. Today, on the ground, long after the engine was stopped, it showed 28” MP. The altimeter setting was 30.35”, and I am at a field at 830 feet elevation. I think the MP should have been showing 29.5”. Am I right? Also, I was flying today at 24/2400, and my fuel flow for 100 ROP was 11.5 gph. That seems high to me. 3) I keep having a problem with the bluetooth connection between my Bose A20 headset and my iPhone 13. Every couple of minutes or so, the connection drops (shows in iPhone as disconnected) and a couple of seconds later reconnects. It does an annoying chime sound when doing so. Has anyone else experienced this? Is there a fix? Thanks, Andrei. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ok, I went to the plane today and tried to measure the cowl flap opening. But I don’t know where on the flap to measure. Mine has an edge that is a continuous descending slope, not with three step-downs. Any suggestions at what point of the flap I should measure the opening? Right now when they are fully open, at the very end they are about 1.75” open. When closed, maybe 3/8”. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Oh, that's very helpful (the picture especially). I'll go to the plane today to measure the open position for my flaps. I was not measuring anything at that position, I thought one would measure at the very end. A.

Hello, because the potentiometer in my dimmer box was wonky, I ended up spending $300 for a new MaxDim dimmer and completely rewired the dimmer setup in my 1970 M20E. Most of the stuff left was useless, but I know some people may need one or two of the little fuses that sometimes blow. These are very hard to find -- I heard people mentioning paying $400 for one of them, which is insane. I am offering these two fuses to anyone who may need them (or wants to keep a spare in case theirs goes out). These will go out to the first person to ask for them, for the cost of shipping them only (probably $5-10). Paying it forward to the people who helped me out in the past. A.

Reduced now to $100 OBO.

Okay, I went and adjusted them today. I was able to close them another 1/2", but they still are open about 1/2". There are some oil hoses (dark red, two of them) that prevents the left cowl flap from closing more. I adjusted the right one to be at the same opening amount as the left one. We'll see if this makes a difference in CHT in cold weather and/or in cruise speed.

Thanks!

Ok, but how does one adjust the cowl flaps on the E? Same thing as what @A64Pilot said?

Hello all, 70E model here. My cowl flaps are about 3/4” open when fully closed. In cold Wisconsin winter that is not what I want, as in cruise even with flaps closed my CHT barely gets in the green. Yesterday I went to try to adjust them and I could not figure out within 1/2 hour how to do it. I looked through a bunch of threads, but they all discussed how much to adjust them, and not how the actual procedure works. The best I could figure out was that one should loosen the locking nut on the threaded cable end, and somehow disconnect the cable end from the flap. But I was not able to do this last step. How does one use the spring-loaded mechanism to disconnect the cable end from the flaps? Thanks, A.

For a Century IIB I had in my Piper Cherokee I used Autopilots Central in Tulsa OK and they were very helpful. Rebuilt my aileron servo to better than new for about 1.3 AMU.

If it's not too much to ask (feel free to ignore) could you give us a PIREP on lead time, time it took to do the job (how long the plane was down) and how much it cost?

In my plane the one time the system was not charging happened when the voltage regulator got itself tripped up over some overcurrent. The recommendation was to turn the master off and then after 15-20 seconds on again while the engine is running (obviously, you want all your electronics off). I don't believe this will fix your situation since I assume in your case you tried several times to turn things off and on again, hence resetting the VR, but since it's very easy to do may be worth a try once?

I'm afraid this is what *any* airplane ownership is like. The first 6 months to a year of your ownership, all goes wrong (hopefully no gear collapse, which you seem to have avoided!) For some reason this is what seems to always happen. Some are things you may have known when you bought the plane (if you had a good pre-purchase inspection), others are just stuff you find out. But after you clean up the gremlins, you can hope to have many years with just an annual inspection and minor inconveniences here and there. This has been my experience with every plane I owned. Here's a small example, just for fun. One of the planes I owned, and which I feel was more trouble-free than most, was a 1967 Cherokee 180. Had trouble starting from day one. Here is a list of things that went wrong in just this one maintenance area: 1) Replaced starter with a nice new lightweight SkyTec. Helped for a few months, and then back to slow starting. 2) New battery. Same as before, better starting for a while, back to ground zero. 3) Managed to forget to take out the cowl plugs when starting the plane (big booboo!) someplace 8 hours driving from home. Alternator belt messed up, had to have a mechanic at a different field pull off the prop, put on a temporary automotive belt to make it home. 4) Was left stranded at a completely unattended grass strip in Michigan UP, where not even taxis come, no cell phone service, because the starter decided to do nothing at all. Had to hand prop the plane with just my 12 year old son (not a pilot, obviously) at the controls. 5) Replaced battery box. Slightly better, not much. 6) Bit the bullet and replaced the aluminum battery cables with copper. Hurray! Now we're talking... This all took 3-4 years of bad experiences... The only thing to avoid is to sell your plane right after you got all the bugs fixed.

As a fairly recent owner of a 1970 E model, here are some things I've learned: -- Fuel injected (i.e., E or F versus C or G) is really nice; on top of the extra 20 hp, you don't need to worry about carb ice; hot starts were not an issue for me. -- My bird will do 150 kts if pushed hard, but more realistically it's around a 142 kts plane; with the fuel injection and a good engine monitor you can run LOP at around 8.5-9gph at altitude. -- The electric gear is ok, but many people swear by the manual one, which is lower maintenance. My plane had one gear up in the 90's because of a failed gear box for the electric gear mechanism (Dukes model). It was since replaced with a more reliable unit (Eaton). -- If you can get a plane with recently resealed fuel tanks or with bladders, it's really good. Otherwise prepare yourself for regular patching of the tanks. Mine has the bladders and I am really happy not to have to worry. -- A three-blade prop will slow you down 4-5 knots, lose you 15 lbs useful weight, and is a bit less smooth over a two blade. (Mine has the three blade.. I think many people consider it to look better, but I'd rather have the other advantages.) -- Check when the gear shock disks were replaced; they are good for about 15 years on a short body, not sure on a long body. Costs about $3000 to replace all. -- If your mission rarely involves 3 people in the plane (you + 2), then an E or a C is perfect; if you need to carry someone in the back frequently, I think an F or G is a must. Be wary of the useful load -- my E has a useful load of 897 lbs, which with full fuel means 3 people and no (or small) bags, or 2 people and plenty of baggage. -- For me engine and airframe health come way above fancy avionics. Many people will spend north of $40k on avionics; in my opinion this money is best spent on a solid airframe and a low-time engine from the factory or from a well-known shop. People have flown safely for 50+ years in these planes with steam gauges, I don't see why it should be a priority to change that. (Sure, it's nice to have the gizmos, but a 430W still seems perfectly adequate for my occasional IFR flight.) The only thing I do recommend is a solid autopilot, it can be very useful for long flights, and a life saver in IFR. Watching that AI for the slightest move for 3 hours in solid IFR is very trying. My plane has a good STEC 30 and I am grateful for it. If you plan to fly LOP a 4 cylinder engine monitor is also necessary. -- The one part that seems to be very hard to find if yours goes bad is the accordion adapter for the airbox. Mooney produces these in small batches of about 50-100 at a time, and these get sold almost immediately. If you are looking at a fuel injected Mooney inspect yours carefully before buying, as having a bad one seems to be a possible cause for grounding you for a while. Other people may want to comment more on this, as mine seems to be ok. -- It seems that after around 1968 there were some cost-cutting measures in producing these planes, which result in a 2-3 knot speed loss (more protruding screws and rivets instead of flush ones). So models before 1968 are better in this respect. But for every plane the biggest thing for me would be how well the plane was taken care of; being hangared most of its life, being flown regularly, being maintained by well-known shops or by a mechanic that shows care (these things can be seen from the log books) can make a huge difference in future maintenance costs, and this can trump almost anything else I wrote above. I would take a well-taken care of C model, at the same price, over a neglected F any day.

My plan was to do this in three days, first day Madison, WI to Cheyenne, WY, second day to Salt Lake City, UT (where I would stay a couple of days to ski), and third day to my final destination in the Bay Area. (I'll be spending 4 months in Berkeley for work and would like to have my plane with me.) Is there a simple option to get oxygen without installing a whole shebang? Disposable cans? Anything else? Last year I had planned to go to Santa Fe, but in the end the weather was bad and had to fly commercially. If the weather on the route above does not work out, I can always try the southern route. Though it would be really nice to make it to SLC to ski with my son who will be there at the time.

I would be interested in this topic too, as I am planning to fly from Wisconsin to California in mid-January in my 70E. No real mountain flying experience, low-lander. Best times of day to fly? Follow mountain passes, or stay at high altitude? Best times of the day to fly?

I learned this the hard way after getting ice in my spinner at least 3 times over a couple of winters parked outside (Piper Cherokee at the time). The vibration of the engine on start up will surely let you know something is amiss. The solution: get the airport to bring an engine pre-heater and point it at the spinner for 5-10 minutes. Works like a charm.