cliffy

As a long tie A&P and having come in behind many many "owner's maintenance" issues I am VERY dubious of "owners" doing their own maintenance. I had a recent experience though with one who wanted to change his own C model engine mount (paint it) and I agreed to "interview" him at his hangar. Much to my surprise he turned out to be as good as the best A&Ps I have ever worked with BUT bear in mind he was the exception to the rule. After his work, I found only 2 minor issues to address before I signed it off. Just my experience tells me most owners own evaluation of their abilities to do quality aircraft maintenance is way beyond their actual abilities. Having done hands on training at maintenance seminars and letting owners just safety wire two bolts AFTER showing them how to do it bares the reality of what I speak, I'm sure there are a few that can but not the majority by my experience.

Just as another point of reference from personal experience- I had the red fuzzy filter for a while and found that after a couple encounters with rain the "fuzzy" was washed off the outside of the screen and a light from behind showed BIG holes in the filtration. Went back to the Bracket. Take your red filter off sometime and try it. You'll find visible holes- many. Red filters in cars don't have the rain impact to deal with.

Be sure to check ALL the fuel line fittings in the area and not just the two on the pump. Have found some loose from years of vibration.

Ya I know it a long ways but "MUTTON" ? If in Texas its a real good stop with a crew car at the airport

GOOD! Please keep them coming

Interesting that a current thread is in this arena right now- Working on another multiday Mooney maintenance seminar (somewhere overseas :-) (May come to pass and may not.) and looking for your input as to what subjects "you" would like to see covered in the class room and in a hands on session in the hangar if YOU were to attend same. Just trying to see if my current iteration covers the majority of what Mooney owners would want to see. Pass along your ideas please. This is for airframe and engine subjects only We won't go into the multitude of electronic panel options out there.

MUTTON? Might as well eat old Billy Goat! The west was won on BEEF!!! Cooper's BBQ in Llano, TX :-)

Look in the Lycoming and the Mooney parts manual to see if you have all the correct baffle parts you need before you get too deep into spending money on chasing an issue that can be solved with the correct parts Verify what the book shows to what you have part by part.

With 150 HP its basically 2 person airplane If the wood is OK (and you have a good wood savvy A&P it might be alright I think (I need to verify) that all the wood tail are AD'd and changed to metal Check this out if it still has a wood tail? Question- Why are you looking around at the "bottom of the barrel" so to speak? Rarely is a barn find worth it in the end Remember the airplane is almost 70 years old. Radios installed vs needed today? Landing gear rubber donuts? Fuel leaks? How long ago was it flown and how much has it flown in the last 2 years? Engine cam lobe problems! Now if you like saving history and don't mind lots of work to get there (and $$$$) then it might be a good deal. If all you really want to do is go fly - move on to a better candidate. This one is not a buy it and fly it prospect.

Snake Oil sold out of the back of horse drawn wagon by Dr Feel Good? :-) Lots of "oils" around but TriFlow is easy to find and approved.

Obviously a "local" item because out here in the west, where men are men, we have no idea what this refers to! :-) Maybe similar to a cream cheese and cucumber finger sandwich for afternoon tea?

As far as the data plate- Back when the requirement to have the data plate mounted on the rear of the fuselage came about they allowed that numerous aircraft had them mounted elsewhere (Cessna 140 inside the windshield on top of the panel for instance). The ruling came down that those without a manufacturers data plate on the tail could just pop rivet a hand stamped aluminum strip on the tail with the name of the airplane and it serial number - M20C-xxxx Look around at older airplanes and you will see that that is what they did back then so just have your A&P get some .032 aluminum about 3/8 inch tall and 2 inches long and use metal hand stamps to input the correct numbers and pop rivet it on the tail. That will satisfy the regulation. I might add that the alternator definitely does not meet TC or STC requirements. You need to find in the log books where/when that was put on and what it replaced and find the original installation be it factory or STC.

@M20GforMe You just call them and explain what you are facing and they have experts on call to help. You can explain what you are faced with and they will offer what plan you need Probably the $449 or $899 If you want them to step in then it would be the $899 If you want their advice and you present that to the shop yourself then the $449 one. In reality the $899 one is still a bargain considering what you are faced with for a bill at this time. I HAVE NO CONNECTION WITH SAVVY only have meet Mike several times and watched in person his presentations at seminars. He' helped a lot of folks over the years and he knows what to do.

Get in touch with Mike Busch at SavvyAvaition.com right now He is the guy you need for help RIGHT NOW His fees are reasonable and the cheapest money you will ever spend on your plane. savvyaviation.com Run don't walk to your computer!!!

@GeeBee I love this story of yours on the 737s :-) See below Back to the OP- unfortunately we hear this scenario over and over on this forum through the years Its always a shock to a new owner when the first annual goes sour. We all want to have a good experience in buying our first airplane but many times it turns out less than desired AND its not confined to Mooneys. It happens in every line of planes. We tend to (as human) view with myopic eyes that we can treat airplanes like our new cars- insert key, drive- When in fact we have an antique vehicle maybe 50 or more years old that has been sitting outside in the sun and weather for 99% of its life. What are we to expect. It ain't a new Toyota. We can preach "get a prebuy at least" but many times that falls through the cracks. and all we are left with is pick up the pieces. I feel sorry for the OP that this has happen BUT it can be remedied and a useful airplane will come out at the end. The OP can also show how he "resurrected" a lost airframe and made it whole to the next buyer after enjoying the fruits of his labor for a few years. All is not lost! Its only a temporary setback. GeeBee- One airline I worked for bought a 737-200 out of the jungle in Jakarta (we called it the "jungle jet") I got it on its first revenue flight - MCI-DEN-SLC and return. When I got to DEN I had 3 writeups that I could MEL. When I got to SLC I had 5 more :-( All MELable) SO now I have 8 MEL stickers on the log book. I leave SLC with a full load and out of 25,000' I get an RD and have to dump it down to 12,000'. Couldn't get Stby or manual AC or DC to work. Back to SLC. We cancel the flight as I wasn't going to put paying passengers back in the airplane. Ferry to MCI. By the time I got to MCI I had a total of 32 writeups on the airplane. It fell apart around me :-) I was met by the Dir of OPS and the Dir of Mx at the gate and spent 30 mins going over everything that as wrong on the airplane. It got fixed and went back on the line only to suffer more pressurization problems. After many days they found that one phase of the APU feed lines had been spliced under the floors and had corroded causing a phase imbalance and dumping the pressurization. When working for Continental Airlines in about 1970 we sold our 5 707 water bombers (water injection) to TWA and before delivery we changed out all the good tires and brakes for runouts from the wheel and brake shop (they were all going in for heavy check at TWA) and when they pulled the bottle bolts on the wing roots on a couple of them they were so corroded the airplanes sat for quite a while awaiting repairs. Even 121 maintenance is no guaranty of a good airplane. Almost every galley we pulled on a heavy check airplane had bad corrosion below on the floor structure. Finding surprises after purchase is almost a cost of doing business in this arena.

Haven't seen that happen on the Dynon but I'll try it again next flight

An update- If you want to use the HDX heading bug - BEFORE you hit FLT PLN and NAVIGATE make sure you select the left Dynon knob to HEADING and turn the knob to bring the HDG bug to the top of the compass card. That way when you select FLT PLAN the airplane will stay on your current heading and not wander off to what ever heading the bug was on before selection as you try to quickly get the bug on the correct heading Again its called "buttonology"

Moooo, Moooo, Git up there you 4 legged raggedy looking animals! Git a move on!

Interesting. Mine is working fine.

@Pinecone Basically you are correct except I was referring to just the 'PODS" used on most Intn'l flights. True that a few carriers have a real 1st Class while most just use the pods as 1st class. As far as the pods go I do think there are only about 3 types in use on the majority of carriers. Whether its called 1st or BC really makes no difference. A couple carriers have a true 1st class with apartments for those "special" travelers while the rest of us have to use the more mundane pods. Most "domestic" 1st class are jut the larger ordinary seats up front. When I started back in the late 60s 1st class was special and even kids under 12 were not allowed into those hallowed spaces. Now? we have the screaming baby and the tanktop/flipflop crowd upgraded to deal with :-) We need to go back to actually dressing up to go fly somewhere as it was back then. Mooneys separate us from the minions and the serfs :-)

@donkaye, MCFI From St George Utah to Houston TX, I can match airline total travel time in my 64' D model !!! About 7 1/2 hrs I can have good catering on board and TRAVEL ARMED!!! :-) Going further we go 1st Class IF possible and if time is of the essence. You have to watch what airline you are flying because most the the lower tier commuters do not have a 1st Class section. Why pay for it if its not available? Look out for "Mixed Cabin" demarcation. Back when I started at Continental Airlines (in the late 60s) we actually carved full Prime Rib roasts seat side in 1st class, with ice cream hot fudge sundaes for desert. Bacon wrapped filet mignon was a big seller! :-) We have found a large (very large ) difference in 1st class treatment among the different airlines with United at the bottom of the list. Delta seems to us to be as good or better than the crowd with "decent" first class service. Going overseas (South Pacific) we have found Air France to be far and away the best for service and pricing. There are maybe 3 different "lay flat" capsules for 1st class service and each one has its own problems. All seem to me to be rather confining BUT much better for overseas and 10 hrs than even Coach Premium. Plus being first off for customs is a big help! All have a big divider between the side by side seats. Over all if I have the time (and logistics) we go by Mooney even to Florida a year ago. Much nicer way to travel than to fight TSA and the crowd at the airline airports even when going 1st class.

Never would have thought Thanks!

Let not forget the fairly large and sudden rotational movement at each start and stop of the engine, even in its mounts, and of course the constant rotational vibration while running. That's why its flexible What seems at first glance easy- has complications. As I've said before, we are flying antiques by every measure of the word. We have the "original" manufacturer willing to still make parts for 60 year old products but at a cost. Name any company in the world still willing to do that! What is a reasonable cost to keep antiques flying? We can complain all we want (to our own detriment) but it won't change the dynamics of the situation. We choose to stay in a segment of GA that is essentially slowly going away by the attrition of airframes as we wreck more of them every year than are made and some aren't even made anymore - MOONEYS! Other, newer segments of GA are booming, LS, experimental, etc taking the wind out of our segment and the desire to manufacture for our segment. Anything new, now, in our segment is nearer to 1 MILLION dollars to purchase. The field is small for those capable of such a purchase. Parts costs are a factor of todays pricing not what it cost a half a century ago to make. Its analogous to buying a 40 year old Rolls Royce today (of which I'm very familiar). There are many Rolls available for an "affordable" price almost all of which have numerous "differed" maintenance items. Just like most of our GA fleet. You can bring an old Rolls Royce back from the dead to its former glory - but at a cost- as with it too, the parts are priced at today's value and not what they cost 40 years ago. We are going to have to admit (at some time) that to play in this game is going to cost a significant amount of money and we will have to loose the "CHEAP BASTARDS" moniker. Time marches on.

Might be easier to just remove the wing and put it all on a trailer to Kerrville! If one just wanted to do the minimum and just do the prop and the rear crank gear AD the metal work probably isn't too bad Might be a good buy for a DIY repair and a keeper for a few years if resale value is not a big mental factor. Might not lose any money in the long run.

I had a mid 60s VW that I could have the engine on the ground, by my self, in 7 mins!! In high school my buddy and I changed many transmissions (Powerglides) in a 55 Chevy in a weekend laying on the floor. We blew them up right and left.