Grant_Waite

I had bought one of every single color light from https://www.aero-lites.com/product-page/1816 I believe those were the type of bulbs. I decided that I liked the green the best one, after flying at night and having the cockpit look like a Christmas tree. I chose it for esthetics mainly, I did I little reading into it. If I remember correctly green does keep your night version over just bright white per say. I had them cranked all the way to full bright for that picture. They definitely don’t need to be bright to see at all. I noticed with the leds and the rheostat that at low brightness, the leds will flicker some. I don’t do much if any night flying due to just the added risk. My biggest fear is not seeing where I can put it down if I have an emergency. I’m the type to have all my glass backlighting cranked all the way to max 24/7 so I rarely use the glare shield lights. I could see them being useless for old steam gauges, without lights or looking for something in the cockpit.

I bought the plane form the previous owner like it was, just making it my own. Him and I are still good friends and keep in touch, it’s not your typical relationship of a seller and buyer which is nice. Yes, it has a remote transponder you can see the screws on right hand side above the autopilot decals, that’s where the remote transponder is. He at one point did change all the switch caps, not the switches themselves I believe. Back when Lasar or Mooney had caps. If I had to do it over, I’d change the switches completely, go all glass and dump all my old analog instruments. I surely wouldn’t get a 55x albeit they are much better than what came from the factory, just seem have some issues that Garmin and hopefully the new dynon won’t. For whatever reasons all the labels on the panel are stickers not engraved, which I think makes it look less clean. I also would have just gone to a jpi930 to get rid of the old factory gauges, I don’t even look any them except the fuel indicators. It didn’t come with the Jpi oil pressure transducer installed, so I had to install that. You can PM with any more questions, I’d be glad to answer any of them.

Yeah, I wouldn’t be willing to or have the means to take it on myself so the labor rate would be somewhere in the 20k range near me. Not to mention acquiring all the parts and the unknowns about it. I can’t imagine the struggle and headaches. But I completely understand since it’s your forever plane. This is my now and probably for a long while plane, but I don’t believe my forever plane… but who knows. It’s a nicely equipped panel. My Stec will hold altitude but I have to trim it myself or set the vs to 0 before I engage altitude hold, or else it’ll porpoise. I have rudder trim but it still doesn’t work after they reinstalled it at annual. I know both can be fixed but haven’t had the time or money to dedicate to it yet. And yes, I installed the green led lights, I think it looks cooler than red.

After talking with Hector I went with the velcro ones, as we both agreed it’d be near impossible to install the stitched ones without removing linkages to the rudder pedals themselves. It cost me $125 for 4 boots with shipping and credit card fee it came to like $150. Still way less than if Lasar had their’s in stock. Ah, okay I believe I remember reading about your post or another Ms member that did the wheel well ectomy. I hate the throttle quadrant but I know it makes 0 financial sense to change it, knowing how much is involved. I’m sure parts are only available from a salvaged plane. I did however get custom knobs made and powder coated them for all 3 levers. Freshened up the quadrant nicely. I also cerakoted the levers in places with an air brush, and that stuff is never coming off.

Hector said, he has 2 types Velcro and the sewn ones. Did you find the sewn ones to do a good job at sealing the pedals up?

Yeah, I’m chasing a co leak right now. Do the boots just slide around the pedals and then get a little needle or something to hold them together? It seems that sliding them overtop of the pedals would be impossible. Mine seem to have a little piece of leather tied around the pedals, to close the opening off. Also what kind of glue did you use to seal the boots to the bottom of the metal plate?

All 4 of my rudder pedal boots have holes around the bottom sides and are falling apart. Has anyone replaced their’s before? How did you go about doing it? I sent Hector at Aerocomfort an email, since it says he can make new ones? Lasar has boots or use to for 51 a piece but they’re out of stock.

The price of leather hides is quite expensive these days. Like I said the price will come down depending on material, pattern, stitching etc. to me the only option is real leather, for that great smell and feel. I know vinyl will last way long than leather but then you get no great smell, plus the feel just isn’t identical. But that’s Things are only going to get more expensive and unobtainable in this world. I don’t see anything in aviation getting cheaper. I’ve also gotten quotes of 1000 and 1500 bucks from auto upholstery shops.

Man, that’s on the lower end too for a lot of places. The more basic of design, the less it’ll be. Depending on material, embroidery the price will go up and down.

Any idea of what the cost breakdown was? My seats are in desperate need of new foam and leather. I’m trying to decide if I want to do all the carpets first or one seat for the price of all the carpets. I’ve gotten quotes from a few auto upholstery shops and an interior shop down in KPGD. One seat basically comes out to 2215, that’s all new foam and diamond stitched inserts, new shaped head rest. I am planning to do nylon carpet, hence the cheaper cost.

We were planning to use natural gas, as we had a line for it down the street. But since governments suck we couldn’t use it because it was put there for commercial use. None of the people I know that have one in Florida, use natural gas. For whatever reason it’s all propane making it the one downside. That’s not to mention all our power lines should be underground by this point… but that’s circles back to shitty government

Some destruction at KVDF

It’s astounding the level of effort some put into being a CB. We lost power 4 hours into it Thursday and ran on the whole house generator almost nonstop until Monday. We started at 67%, on a 500gal tank. We ran it down into the high 30s before the propane guy came Sunday to refill the tank. Thank God, because we weren’t expecting anyone to show up. Cost 900 something to fill it back up and we got power back early Monday. We could have gone without power for a whole month after he filled it. Our entire house ran 3 ac’s, two 5 tons another smaller one and mini split, 2 full size refrigerators, 3 wine fridge’s, well, hot water heater, and everything else. Our house turned into a refuge camp for those CB that didn’t have one. We had an extension cord and hose running to the next door neighbor basically the whole time. Needless to say a whole house generator is 1000% worth the investment in hurricane prone states… no question about it. Our house was built in 2019 and has spray foam insulation in the whole roof, so it doesn’t leak air at all. All the leds and everything else helps a lot too. Idk about some but sleeping without AC is truly miserable and a major first world problem.

Not to mention, the price differences between lycomings and continentals. I can get a new io550 for the same price as an io360. Albeit everyone seems to say lycomings are better and make tbo more consistently. Not to mention the maintenance cost is higher on continentals. Even with all that I find it hard to understand how there’s such a large price cap between the 2. The lead times for continentals aren’t as bad as lycomings. A flying club I was in got a new io520 for a V35a in about 4 months, like 2 years ago. The fact that engines waiting times are years and not month or so is insane. Something is completely wrong and I’m not surprised if the higher powers want it that way.

As someone who lives in the Tampa area and stops in Zephyrhills, for fuel after every flight, I can’t see why anyone would choose hawk. I use to be in a flying club that had one of their planes painted by them in 2019 and it looked like shit. You would have thought the plane was painted in the early 2000s. The cowl paint was a metallic blue and it looked like the clear and color were just fading and flaking off. Plane wasn't outside either. My current plane was painted by them for the previous owner over a decade ago and looks okay for how long ago it was. If I’m paying 30k for paint, I expect no runs, no overspray behind panels, and no sanding marks. Not sure that’s even possible as I’ve never seen it. Even Cessna factory paint on the new citations and caravans look like shit. There’s got to be some shop in the US that can give a paint job the justification of being 30k.

Lasar is currently acquiring the rights from Eaton to have the no back springs made. Eaton doesn’t want to have anything to do with the gear motors anymore. A 3rd party company was contracted to make them for Eaton. As you can imagine they only make large batches. I recently bought an Eaton from Lasar. I’ve spoken to Kyle at the repair department too many times to count. He’s told me they should have them available sooner rather than later. I would give him a call before you waste time and money.

What pads did you use?

Man they look even better than I remembered them. I’m not a fan of the ram horns. But I do like the newest Mooney yokes. But the cygnets won’t break the bank. Just missing a leather wrap ;)

I’m looking to buy new disc and pads. Anyone have any experience with the APS Blacksteel disc at all? From the description, it seems they won’t rust or corrode all. The rapcos are only treated on the hat portion, per the description. I have a shade hangar in Florida so I’m definitely in the corrosion environment. I fly once or more a week so that negates some of it. Not sure which pads are the best but people seem to say Cleveland? I’m guessing you can mix and match disc and pad brands without issues. Also it seems all the pads AS says are compatible with my plane, are organic ones. What’s the benefit or difference in organic and metallic ones? Thanks!

When I called Cygnet early this year, they told me that Mooney was supposedly sending them drawings for yokes. Maybe eventually they will make replacement, modern Mooney yokes. I’ve seen a Mooney with cygnet yokes and it looked quite nice. It’s all who you get to do the work. You could ask around and I’m sure you could find someone who’d install a cygnet yoke in a Mooney.

Oh no, for the whole actuator, I have no idea what the gears are worth.

In comparison it was nothing to the motor. That’s what overnight from Oregon to Florida will cost you. I didn’t want to take any chances of it getting lost or destroyed.

Yeah, Lasar just did the ad inspection for me and yellow tagged it. Replaced one 20 dollar bearing. I don’t know if it has 20:1 or 40:1. It just got installed back in the plane so I could get it airworthy to fly until I get the other motor and mods installed in late October. Not sure what it’s worth but I’ve seen them be between 4-6k. I won’t have any use for any of the old parts. So if anyone wants them as spares or replacements feel free to pm about them.

The motor cost $10715 the other required parts from bas another $500 let’s say and multiple orders from aircraft spruce for hardwares another $200 bucks maybe. I’m having Jetdriven do the install since he did the same thing to his J. His is a few serial numbers before mine. So I’ve yet to have it installed, but have all the parts. My plane was aog for 3 months and still is but I’m getting it tomorrow before the hurricane smashes it in Tallahassee. There’s quite a few parts that you need to do this conversion that take multiple miracles. I plan on photographing all the parts you need when I get it back tomorrow and documenting the install if I can. My gears didn’t fail but the emergency gear extension cable did. N201MKturbo can make a new one if the ends are good. McFarland can also make a new one for 3 k and 3-4 weeks lead time. I didn’t like the idea of the gears going bad or the cable, so I decided to do the next best option since I fly my plane a lot.

Yeah it seems Frank is the gatekeeper to all of this. I had to go to Don Maxwell to get what I needed. Never spoken to Frank on the phone so not sure if he’s on our side or not but sounds like it. Just seems assbackwards who’s calling the shots around there. Here’s the documents if anyone ever needs to change their gear motor to the Eaton just in case. I have it posted in the downloads section under stc and 337s 940007_F EatonPlessey upgrade.PDF