Shiroyuki

The prop governor appears to be clear of oil, couldn’t find any drips around it.

Hi everyone, I’m having a oil leak issue on my way home and lost about 1 qt of oil during a 2.7 hours flight. The engine was field overhauled last year during annual inspection and have roughly 80 hours so far on it. The mechanic found a drip of oil hanging on the brass rasher, supposedly a crush washer at the oil pick-up screen. It was removed and reinstalled with new crush washer twice but the leak still persist. Then we suspects the oil is coming from the oil sump gasket just above it, and added some epoxy sealant and did a test flight, and it is still leaking. None of these two action made any changes to the oil leak symptom. The mechanics couldn’t find any leak during ground run up, and every test flight ends with oil covering the gear door. Most oil is on the left gear door but a few lines on the right gear door too. We can see oil on hoses and engine mounts below that brass crush washer so that area must be where it comes from. it is bone dry above the engine sump gasket, and oil everywhere below the oil pick up line washer. Now I’m not at my home field and my usual mechanic is six hour flight away. The local guys straight up gives up and says they couldn’t find any leak, and says i should fly it to my mechanic and get it sorted out. I’m a bit concerned about the oil leak getting worse in flight. The leaked oil is also dripping onto exhaust pipes making a very nasty smell. Does anyone have any similar experience about an oil leak around this area?

As a new mooney owner, I'm curious about if there's any new information on how's the mooney company going? Last update I could find is they laid off all employee in 2020 and sold to new owners.

Thanks for your reply! I just talked to my mechanic over the phone today and he says if the flame tube is completely gone, he is ok with it. If there's any remaining flame tube inside his suggestion would be to change the muffler, since it risk blocking the exhaust. I think it make sense.

During a recent inspection my M20J’s muffler flame tube was found to be broken, and my mechanic suggest to replace it. The mechanic who found the broken flame tube says the riser and tailpipe need to be replaced at the same time, while my regular mechanic says he would just replace the muffler. I don’t really know who’s advice to follow so looking for some input. thanks

I just found out a bit more info regarding the plane. During an annual conducted earlier this month: Visible corrosion below RH window. Both tanks are seeping, All cylinder walls are showing corrosion, engine leaking oil from multiple locations and was deffered, need to add 1 liter of oil every three hours. and there is small non ferrous metal in the filter and larger non ferrous material in the sump screen. I decided to not to go through this purchase as the engine itself is enough trouble, doesn't worth the extra time and money to fix the other stuff as well. There's other better plane on the market.

One thing that baffles me about an-30 is for a 3 inch instrument they decided to cheap out on the display screen. In my old airplane i had an av30 installed to control Tailbeaconx and a g5 as HSI. The different in the screen’s smoothness is huge. I swear av30 has a 30fps screen instead of a 60fps screen which is wildly used in today’s computer and smartphones. This 30fps just makes the instrument feels laggy and unresponsive. i also find that the unit won’t erect to 0 degree after a bank, it will always sits at 3 degree or so in the opposite direction after i return the plane back to level for a while. I wouldn’t trust this instrument as the pure source of attitude in IFR flights.

I see. Thanks for the advice.

I don’t think this engine has an established history of oil and filter analysis. I would not hesitate to make the purchase if they do. They don’t even have any time since last oil change so I can’t even inspect the filter and send out and oil sample. they do claim they preserved an sample from annual which is literally last week. The seller says he will find if his mechanic sent it out or still have it at his hangar. my question is, if i start doing oil analysis now, is it too late to establish a baseline?

Regarding the overhaul, yes it is at the top of my budget, and I’m aware that it might need an overhaul any day now. I do have extra cash in hand just enough for a fresh overhaul, I wouldn’t even consider purchasing this airplane if I don’t have the money to overhaul it. But if i have the engine overhaul today that would leave me no other money for other repairs if something else go wrong, like if i have to reseal the tanks. If the engine could run for another two year I would be more comfortable with doing the overhaul. By the time it’s likely that i would also got an upgrade to left seat at my company. i did check the books and it says tanks for resealed on 2005. Corrosion shouldn’t be an issue since the plane is hangared all its life. My mechanic seems to know what he’s doing and he has my trust on inspecting those. My first option actually isn’t this airplane. I was looking at another M20J with ok-ish avionics, gns430, some old nav/com, good enough for getting through some bad weather but not hard IFR, which I would not do even in this Mooney. That plane has a 0 time engine and is $30,000 cheaper. The only problem is the owner does not allow my mechanic to inspect the plane and insisted on having a local mechanic from his airport to do the pre purchase inspection. I figured that sounds fishy, and he lied to me about damage history as well which i figured out soon when reviewing the logbooks. I’ve got a pretty descent idea of my routine cost. My insurance quoted me 2500$ for full in motion and not in motion coverage. My local airport’s parking is roughly 2000$ a year. I would love to get a hangar but my local airport does not have any T hangars. It’s a remote airport in the Canadian north where highway ends. Since i live in an area where it is extremely geographically remote, deep in Canadian Shield, the purpose of the inspection is less about making sure the plane will last another 500 hours, but make sure there’s nothing that’s going to fail catastrophically soon. A forced landing here is going to be fun, it’s either frozen lake or rocky terrain with forest cover.

Hi everyone I'm looking to purchase a 1981 M20J with some recently upgraded avionics and an engine near tbo. The price of the airplane is reasonable but at the top of my budget. The engine currently sits at 1850 smoh. it had flown roughly 200 hours in the past 3 years, and about about 30 hour a year before that all the way back to 2008 where the plane is imported into Canada. The seller says the engine is running great. My mechanic and I both think we want to know how's the interal situation of the engine and we want to two cylinders pulled and have a look. The plane is fresh out of an annual with 0 hour so we can inspect the filter element and do an oil analysis. The seller claims he has an oil sample preserved from last annual and will allow us to send it out which I'm not very confident it would help. He also doesn't want to have the cylinder pulled, even though I'm paying the cost and we will split 50/50 if anything is found unairworthy after the cylinder is pulled, for example if it need a new camshaft. I know it is a very invasive procedure and can introduce some risk when the engine is put back together. But I'm also not exactly interested in buying a plane that's falling apart inside. I would love to hear you opinion on if I should insists on having the cylinders pulled, or would you be happy with an oil analysis with no previous baseline value? Also, is there other thing I need to check for? Like fuel tank leak etc? Thanks