danb35

From the first post: "he is having problems getting the Johnson Bar locked in the gear down position."

I flew commercial up to MN Friday to pick up the Mooney on Saturday. The tanks look good, and the lack of signs of leaking on the bottom of the wings looks even better. He'd filled the tanks with as much as they could hold, just to make sure there weren't any leaks. There was some minor paint damage around the upper access panels, but they'd been starting to wear anyway. Everything else looks just fine. I'd been concerned about the weather in MN and its effect on my being able to return--it turned out to not be a factor at all. And yes, I had a nice tailwind for most of the trip back. I hadn't paid enough attention to the weather at home, and had to divert to my alternate, FLO. Fortunately, FLO was where my car was parked anyway, so it was only a minor inconvenience. My wife drove me back to pick up the plane yesterday afternoon.

Getting back to the question that started this thread, and disregarding the wisdom of doing this as a regular practice, I note that the POH for at least some of the earlier models recommends flying an hour on one tank, running the other tank dry, then returning to the first tank. The factory clearly felt that there were no significant adverse flight characteristics resulting from such a fuel imbalance.

John, is your caps lock stuck on?

I'd recommend calling your nearest/favorite Mooney service center (LASAR, Maxwell, SWTA seem to have a robust parts business) rather than the factory--the factory doesn't sell parts directly to individuals.

Interesting that one shop who does fuel tanks for a living has a different opinion of Poly-gone. I don't have personal experience one way or the other, but that's what Weep No More uses, and they seem to find it helpful...

Paul's bill called out labor at $70/hr, working out to just over 80 hours. He'd quoted the job at a flat rate, and met that rate. I suspect he had fewer hours of hands-on labor and consequently makes more per hour, but that's just a guess on my part. I helped my A&P patch the tanks a few years back, and just getting in there is an unpleasant job. Assuming Paul's reseal works as well as his reputation indicates, I'm glad to pay an expert to do the job right.

All 337s are required to be filed with the FAA, and they're also required to be kept as part of the aircraft's permanent records. They aren't subject to the one-year rule for normal mx records. It's up to you, of course, whether you'd accept an electronic copy of a log in place of the dead tree version. Most sensible buyers, I'd think, would be quite willing to do so, particularly if there were a good explanation for the lack of the original. IMO, it's equivalent to a photocopy, which is accepted nearly universally as equivalent to the original.

Just pulled it up (it can be found at http://www.mooney.com/images/pdfs/sb-pdf/sbm20-155.pdf for those playing along at home). From the SB: "Caution must be taken to insure that the lower gear rigging value be used . . .". This bulletin calls for a nose gear preload of 100-130 in-lb, mains of 250-280 in-lb. The introduction to the SB begins, "[a] reduction in the force required to place the manual gear retraction lever in the gear down and locked position can be realized . . .". Mooney developed a newer design of landing gear links which allow more overcenter travel and thus require less force to hold them in place. These parts were introduced during 1967, and aircraft built after that time (including the '68 F that's the subject of this thread) included the new-design parts. Older aircraft could be retrofit with the new parts. However, for whatever reason, the service manuals kept the old preload values.

Legally, any mx records over a year old can be destroyed anyway (although it may be difficult to prove AD compliance if you do that). I'm not aware of any legal requirement for paper mx records, and I understand many of the bizjets store all the records electronically--they don't use paper logs at all. To the extent the logs are required at all, I'd think a scanned copy should be acceptable--though I admit I can't cite chapter and verse to prove it.

The next obvious step is to check the landing gear preloads--they're supposed to be checked at every annual, and if set too high they could cause this problem. There's a Mooney Service Bulletin (M20-155, I think, but I don't have it handy) that reduces the values from what's specified in the service manual.

I tested my F a few years ago--climbed to 10k, shut down the engine with mixture, trimmed for best glide, and timed the descent from 9k to 6k with the prop windmilling. I did two tests, one with the prop full forward, the second with it all the way back. Unlike in Byron's J, there was a significant difference in RPM for me, and the glide was about 20% better with the prop back (low RPM). Overall was a little better than 12:1--I'll have to see if I can find my original write-up.

You say compression in these cylinders is low with leakage past the valves. Have you seen any indication of this on your engine monitor? You should see EGTs rising and falling by 30-50 degrees every minute or so, IIRC, on the affected cylinders. I concur with the suggestion to fly it for an hour or so, and then recheck the compression immediately after shutdown. If there's still evidence of leakage at the valves, I'd look at repairing the cylinders rather than a full OH or replacement with new.

Just got the bill from Paul (will be picking up the plane this weekend). He'd quoted me $7600 plus tax and shipping on the materials, as well as any additional parts and a full tank of gas. The total (not including the gas) was $7951.57. Here's the breakdown: Poly-gone, $1120 Fillet sealer, $224 Brush coat sealer, $224 Access panel sealant, $64 Top coat, $91.68 Labor, $5876.32 Nutplates, 22 @ $5 ea, $110 Fuel drain valves, 2 @ $40 ea, $80 Shipping, $30 Tax, $131.57 The nutplates were capped/sealed nutplates in the access panels, and had been damaged previously when someone installed them with too much sealant in place.

Anything you say in a forum, or anywhere else, can absolutely be used against you in court. You may, of course, present other evidence to contradict it (including your own testimony), but if your only counter is that you were lying when you made your post, your credibility to the judge and/or jury isn't going to look too good. A better argument is likely to be that you didn't actually post it, but it can absolutely be introduced if otherwise relevant. That said, the bigger concern is likely to be FAA enforcement action, and in that case there's no court or rules of evidence involved--it's all up to what the inspector feels like.

The indication on the G1000 was an instrumentation issue. His understanding of the aerodynamics, however, was not. I do think that horse is pretty well dead by now, though--no need to keep posting essentially the same thing weeks or months later to revive it.

Deakin may have said something like that, but I know I've heard Mike Busch make that remark.

Really should allow multiple selections, as the military includes a lot of the others. I picked attorney, but I'm an attorney in the Army.

BTW, Scott, I ended up making a semi-planned stop in Iowa (Sioux City, SUX, to be exact) to wait out some wx on the way up there. First time stopping there.

Looks like He-Man to me...

My Mooney was getting kind of leaky, and my attempt at patching it with my A&P didn't last very long (though it did seem to work initially). I decided it was time to bite the bullet and fix it right, and not wanting to give up the useful load for bladders, elected a reseal. I like the idea of chemical stripping better than hand-scraping, so I flew '48Q up to Willmar, MN a couple of weeks ago on 1/27. I don't have the plane back yet, so I'll update the thread with additional info when I do. So far, though, Paul has been very communicative and free with information. He's also been very helpful on the logistics. He sent a few pictures of the job yesterday. Two pictures of the tanks before stripping (click to enlarge any of the pics): Two pictures of the clean, stripped tanks: ...and two of the sealed parts:

I also use W&B Pro and am happy with it. Any W&B app should be able to handle any aircraft--enter your CG envelope in the app's setup, and make sure the stations you use match your documentation.

I think most pilots never accepted that the updates needed to be logged in the first place. I posted here about it back in December: http://mooneyspace.com/index.php?app=core&module=attach&section=attach&attach_id=21810. The rule requiring logging was stupid, and it seems that even the FAA wasn't completely consistent in its interpretation. However, they've actually improved it now.

As of 1/28, there's no longer a requirement to log database updates--just install and go.

Maybe it is on some, but not all--my '67F doesn't have a chrome-plated step (it's painted), and even where the paint is worn through there aren't any signs of chrome plating.