Greg Ellis

You could also send a note to Jimmy Garrison and Gmaxamericanaircraft.com and tell them what you are looking for. They may be able to keep an eye out for what you are looking for.

On another thread in MooneySpace, someone had mentioned this place for Garmin 430 repairs. I don't know anything about the place however, just passing along information. GNS 430 [Garmin GNS 430] - $135.50 : PalmDR.com, PDA Repair Done Right!

Here's a place where you can get started on your quest for the perfectly balanced engine. General Aviation Modifications, Inc. (gami.com)

I am not sure if this is your issue. Being from Texas, I rarely have to start below 40 and if is below 40 I usually don't feel like going to the airport. However, 100LL does not vaporize well at very cold temps. The reason you wait 30 seconds is for the fuel to vaporize so it will burn. Your 30 seconds may not be enough in the extreme cold you are dealing with. Warming the engine first will help. It will also help to get the oil moving quickly. Each time you crank it over with that cold of an engine you are just losing longevity on your engine. Metal is scraping on metal with no oil barrier because the oil can't get moving quick enough to coat the parts because it is basically syrup. So, I would suggest to try your best to get the engine heated prior to starting. Just my $.02 (USD not Canadian)

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, there was an issue with the early C model Mooneys (like my 1963 C model) with the configuration of the push/pull tubes and the GFC 500 autopilot. I emailed Garmin and asked for an update. I received a response yesterday that Garmin has revised the STC in November and that should cover the earlier C model Mooneys so hopefully I can move forward with my install. Looking forward to it. I post this just in case anyone else was in the same boat I am.

All this talk about re-weighing, weight and balance etc... got me to thinking. So I went back to the original weight and balance in the AFM of my 1963 C model. Very interesting and a little confusing. They did multiple calculations at different CG positions (most forward, full fuel, most rearward, etc...) Whoever did the calculations transposed the last 2 numbers on his/her multiplication. For instance, Empty weight of 1575 X Arm of 44.9 should equal a moment of 70717.5, rounded up to 70718. Well, they put down a moment of 70781. On the gross weight of 2575 X Arm of 49 should be a moment of 126175. They put down 126157. I think I may go back and rework the math and see what happens, unofficially of course.

You would think oil would be everywhere on mine but it was not. We had to trace the leak to the oil cooler lines and a tell tale sign of where to look was the drop of oil I would get on the front tire after every flight. My oil consumption has now returned to what it was prior to the oil cooler line leak. If you do have a leak and not burning off the oil from an internal problem then I would think it would show up from a static run of the engine. A&P's do static runs after oil changes to check for leaks.

Mooney's fault? I don't think the engineers that designed Mooney's in the 1960's ever believed that an autopilot would be created to work in them in the 2020's that would require a special configuration. Don't really think it is anyone's fault and I am glad to hear there is a part under testing. Sorry if I ruffled feathers. Not my intention. I am a Garmin guy. I was the first pre-64 to put money down with my installers and I am looking forward to the day I get the autopilot.

I can empathize/sympathize with this. I am currently waiting install of a GFC 500 on my 1963 C model. It was one of the last models approved by Garmin. However......................Garmin was not aware of different ways these older Mooneys were assembled. Apparently, there is something different about my Mooney on the trim (apparently a pin configuration) that Garmin was not aware of and the new, so called approved autopilot, will not work on my airplane until the Garmin engineers go back to the drawing board and give my installers the OK. I read the email from Garmin stating "do not proceed with the install until the engineers have time to review the issue". That was a good 3 months ago. My installers are Garmin installers and they do initial installs for Garmin on many different aircraft. They speak to Garmin every day so I have confidence in my installers. Garmin???? not sure yet.

I had this issue as well. Not saying that this is what it is but something you could check really easy. I started going through about 1 quart per hour as well. Turns out that the oil lines coming out of the oil cooler had been chafing against the lower cowl and there was a small hole in one of them. When flying and under some pressure the oil was blowing out this hole. The thing about an oil leak, if it is a leak and not a piston issue, is that the airflow inside the cowl can take that oil and disperse it anywhere. So you may find oil not anywhere near the actual leak. The way I noticed mine was that after every flight I would have a drop of oil on the front tire. Otherwise there was no oil anywhere else.

Maybe I went a little overboard on cleaning up my firewall forward....

I do as well. It is a great program. I check it daily and especially if we have weather moving into my area of Texas. I can't begin to imagine the amount of work Scott must have put in to developing this web app. I wonder if he has caught up on all the sleep he must have lost.

A photo of my brother on the left and his son on the right. My brother is now a retired USN Commander. Flew A-4's, F-18 Hornets, and F-5's while active duty. His son, now a Lieutenant, is with surface warfare and meteorology. Very proud of this Veteran and his son (my nephew).

This is not an answer to the OP's question, however, for those not familiar with what metals come from where in our engines, Blackstone-Labs has a nice PDF explaining this. Understanding-Aircraft-combined.pdf

Check in your account settings. There is a spot called Content View Behavior. You can set it to view the first posting, the last posting or the first unread posting. Maybe that will help you with what you are looking for. And just as an aside, mine got switched without me knowing it. I switched it back to first unread post and now when I open a message thread it goes to the first unread post and has the line that tells me where the unread posts start.

This is not important to anything and is really just a small pet peeve of mine but 123.45 is not an official frequency for air to air comms. It is for use in Oceanic regions and for non-governmental flight test operations. There are proper frequencies for air to air communications such as 122.75 for fixed wing, 123.025 for helicopters and 123.30, 123.50 for aviation instruction, gliders and hot air balloons. So, just a nice deep breath to get that off my chest.

Right.

Almost this exact thing happened to me as well. I would notice a drop or two of oil on the nose gear after pushing the plane back into the hangar. Turns out, the oil lines coming out of the oil cooler were chafing, there was a very small hole in one. Coupled with this was a loss of a lot of oil during flight. I supposed that with the oil under pressure in and out of the cooler it was coming out a quite a quick rate (loss of about 1 quart/hour of flying). On the ground with the engine off it only dripped.

It looks like if you want traffic and weather on your GNC 355 you will either have to install a transponder that will provide it like I did (GTX 345) or a GDL 88 (listed at $3995). It does not look like any inexpensive portable ADS B units like the GDL 52 will work with the GNC 355.

Thanks for posting. I look forward to following your progress and of course PIREPS on the engine shop.

I mentioned your name because the original question on the poll was if you had the GFC 500 for more than 6 months and I remember you being one of the early installations much longer than 6 months.

Maybe @donkaye could chime in here. If my memory serves me, I recall him to be one of the first Mooneys to get the GFC500 installed.

I wonder as well about these long lasting miracle batteries. A number of years ago, I was flying at night, almost home when I lost the generator (I now have an alternator). I thought that I would be okay since I was only about 10-15 minutes from my home base. I shed as much load as I could for being at night, and landed in the dark (no radios, no nothing) not by choice. Fortunately the tower was closed at my airport because it was after hours so I did not have to worry about light gun signals. I mention this because the battery power lasted less than 10 minutes. This was on a battery that fired up the engine with absolutely no hesitation each and every time. It was also a battery that was kept on a battery minder (one of the earlier ones). So, if you have a battery that you are proud of that has been "going strong" for ever, get a load capacity check on it. Just because it fires up the engine does not mean it will last when you really need it.

I do this all the time. I have multiple data cards. I have a GNC 355 which is essentially the GNX 375 without the transponder. For my GNC 355 I purchased a three pack of data cards from Amazon for $24.99. They work just fine. I even pulled one out of my DSLR camera when I needed it in a pinch to update the database and it work just fine as well. From the user manual for the GNC 355/GNX 375: FEATURE REQUIREMENTS • SD card in the FAT32 format, with memory capacity between 8 GB and 32 GB Maybe this will help.

I think most have heard of 6 degrees from Kevin Bacon? Well, this first part from @carusoam reads like 6 degrees from Mooney. I love how you start with a shaving company and bring it around to Mooney. Awesome!!!!