Slick Nick

I'd still prefer to have it done myself. The first 3 hours on a new engine are the most important in determining the engine's health moving forward. If I was the one putting those hours on, I'd feel much better about everything from then on out.

I did mine by myself. The headliner needs to drop down in one piece. Once the tubes and wiring are disconnected, you can remove the three screws holding the two halves together and remove the headliner in two pieces. That’s the only way to get it through the door. You can see in one of my photos where I reinforced the nuts for those three screws with cement.

The Wemacs are riveted into the ducts, then permanently attached to the headliner. I removed them because I had two where the clips came out and they were just loose in there. Of course, they all got a good cleaning while apart. It was such a pain in the ass I never want to have to do that again. Cut the housings open, drilled out the rivets, and the wemacs come free. Clean them, re-rivet them in, then glue the housings back to the headliner. I used ABS or PVC cement I can’t remember which, the yellow stuff. Works like a hot damn and the bond is as good as new.

That’s all well and good, perhaps my question wasn’t clear. Why did you choose the Hartzell over the C214 from McCauley? The 214 would have been an upgrade from your 212.

If you were really looking for a new prop, is there a reason you went with the Hartzell over a C214?

If I was a potential buyer, I’d rather buy an aircraft that needed an overhaul as opposed to one that just had an overhaul. Assuming it’s priced accordingly of course. As a buyer, I’d look at that as an opportunity to do whichever upgrades I wanted, in addition to knowing exactly how every single hour post overhaul was flown behind the engine, instead of having to worry about how someone may have broken it in too easily, etc.

You should listen to Mike Busch's podcast on YouTube on a proper prebuy. He outlines exactly how it should differ from an annual inspection, and what he recommends looking for.

Any money you end up spending on a prebuy now will be worth it in the end.

I just did this same thing two weeks ago with my McCauley C214. Just strap it to a pallet and pick it up with your truck. It will fit into an SUV if you fold the seats down and don’t have a truck. Shipping a propeller properly is insanely expensive transborder. Cheapest I found was about $1200. One way.

Here in Canada the same 7 Mooneys have been for sale for damn near a year. They aren't moving.

Have you got the “bravo” style glareshield in your MSE? I thought that didn’t come out until the Allegro in ‘96? My ‘91 isn’t bad to remove. I do put some gaffer tape on the center post to avoid scratching it, but otherwise remove the two screws, disconnect the glareshield lighting, and pull straight back while bending it at the seam in the center. Slides right out no problem.

Update: Put a couple of hours on the airplane since annual. I had the prop rebuilt with new bearings and to replace some leaky seals, and figured I'd have it dynamically balanced once it was reinstalled. Before balancing, the prop checked out at 0.25ips. Its important to note that I don't know if it was that bad before the prop rebuilt, but that was the starting point, which is pretty terrible. After 6 iterations, they got it down to 0.05ips at 2500 RPM. They attempted to get it dialed in even further, but wound up just chasing the same amount around the plot. I am happy with 0.05ips. After flying the airplane, I can confirm a VERY noticeable difference in vibration. Especially now when transitioning through the "forbidden range" on short final, the glareshield doesn't vibrate nearly as bad as it used to. I was charged 4 hours labor. I tried several cruise RPM's yesterday, and everything from 2700 down to 2200 is smooth as silk. For anyone else considering a balance, it's well worth it.

You should definitely remove that strange avionics master setup regardless and return to a stock configuration. The legality of that switch install aside, it opens you up to a ton of issues, not the least of which are a complete avionics failure or back feeding into the main bus. Does that not concern you?

Just like there are good and bad shops, there are good and bad customers. A good customer is engaged in the maintenance on their machine, without "standing over the shoulder" of the guy while he's working. He pays his invoices on time, and provides as much useful feedback to the shop as he can when an issue arises. I know there are lots of pilots (looking at you, Cirrus owners) who just toss the keys and say "fix it" but I try to work with my shop, as much as I can. Sure, there have been some invoices where I've questioned a couple of things, but it's either been cleared up by my shop, or they've given me a satisfactory explanation as to why something took a bit longer. That's the best approach moving forward I think. Just ask for 15 minutes of their time to sit down and go over your invoice, have them break it down line by line.

Removed serviceable from my airplane. Green tagged. TCM harness with ~1200 hours in service. Asking $400 USD obo

Yep. Just twist it around one of the gaps. .040” works best, leave about 1/4” and tuck it up parallel to the hinge.

I meant to say spring CLIP. There are no springs inside the wemacs. The paper towel tube is exactly the right size to slip over, and is easy to hold while you’re spraying, then you can quickly move onto the next one.

I removed my wemac's to clean and repair them, two had lost their springs. It's a pain in the ass you need to cut them out of the headliner, drill out the rivets, then for reinstall rivet them back in, and use PVC cement to build back up the housing that holds them. If you do want to just mask them, an empty paper towel tube fits perfectly over them and provides a really nice invisible border.

This. I actually go out of my way to load the airplane more tail heavy for improved true airspeed I believe on the classic Mooney's, the battery was located up front on the firewall?

While the main objective is to seal the baffles, I’m always amazed at how many mechanics will just gob the RTV on like that. Only takes a few minutes to run a couple pieces of masking tape before you apply the sealant. Hit it with an acid brush to make it lay down a nice texture and then remove the tape. Professional looking sealant every time. That looks awful, I don’t blame you for wanting to redo it.

Call Savvy. I bet Mike Busch will tell you to replace the bolt and run it, which is what I would do. His wisdom on stuff like this is worth the small price of admission.

Because Piper has those huge inner gear doors on a lot of their models. They create large amounts of drag when they open to let the wheels up into the well. I remember decades ago when I flew Navajos, if it was an engine failure on takeoff, it was actually advantageous to leave the gear down, because retracting it opened up the doors to the point that you couldn’t maintain altitude at blue line. That was one of the rare instances where you left the gear down until you got some air under your ass to retract it because it would sink momentarily with all of that stuff hanging out.

Not really one caveat, thousands. It’s impossible to write a POH for every conceivable scenario. Which is why it’s written for a “worst case” which would be slow, and low to the ground, with low energy on a balked landing. The recovery from a balked landing doesn’t need to be used at 1500’ on a discontinued approach outside the FAF, nor was I inferring that. This is where airmanship and good judgement comes into play.

Later models have a blue “BOOST PUMP” indication in the annunciatior panel.

I don’t have any experience with that. My airplane has flap preselect and reaching down for the switch takes no time at all. Don’t even really have to look at it, it’s easily found by feel. (I do not have electric cowl flaps, which would share the same shape of switch.)