Kwixdraw

One over the other? Circle of friends. Habit. What my flight school used so it must be good. Go to the Blackstone Labs website and you will learn a bunch about oils and oil sampling. Tell you up front that they won't recommend one oil over another. What you are buying with oils is the additive package. I ran Shell 20-50 in mine and changed every 25 or 50 hours depending on operational factors and I can tell you that you could scoop the sludge out of the crank and prop hub with a spoon at 1700 hrs. I'm told that this is not unusual and not because of the oil, just my observation in my case.

Nice pics and good info. thanks for the help.

Good PiRep Byron. I've heard the stuff is pretty stretchy so I was thinking it might not hold it's shape. Trying to come up with a compromise. My wife doesn't like leather seats so I am trying to come up with something to suit us both. I thought about doing them in cloth then putting sheepskin covers on them but for some reason that just doesn't get me too excited. I read an article the other day about Lexus and some other high end car going to an ultraleather type product and only providing leather if you pay extra and waive warranty claims on it.

Nice to hear something good about folks we deal with.

Does anyone have experience with the solar control material from Great Lakes Aero? Any other comments about their products? Does anyone have experience with "Ultraleather" for actual seat covering and not just trim pieces?

There are some things beside rigging that can cost you some knots too. Get her up on jacks and check the gear door and cowl flap rigging. These can save you 3-4 knots pretty easy.

If you are looking for problems you may want to check over the exhaust system too. Remember that on turboed engines a good solid exhaust system is needed to get the most out of the turbo.

I feel lucky that when I first bought my J a friend of mine introduced me to Bill Estes at Riverside Air Service. They were a Mooney dealer back in the 70s but a requirement to stock a certain amount of parts ended that situation. Bill walked me though the first couple annuals and showed me the proper way to rig the landing gear. Times change , RAS is no more and Bill has retired. I have a few things I want to accomplish to make improvements to our favored chariots but I am new to this and it will take me some time to learn how to best navigate the system. PMAs and STCs and that sort of thing. I just hope Mooney doesn't sell to the Chinese. Anyone be interested in a kevlar cowl for the J? Not talking a 9-10K LoPresti go fast thing just a solid replacement part with some changes to address problems with the stock unit. Things like the top cracking at the bulge. Cowl flap hinges breaking and holes from the exhaust pipes. What would such an item be worth?

Look here and you can find the service publications for the injector. http://www.precisionairmotive.com/servpubs.htm

I don't know Dave. First I'm going to concentrate on getting the Mooney in tip top shape as sort of a display of my skills. I'd like to do the IA but I will have to see what sort of experience I can generate in three years to see if I can qualify. I'm not crazy about running out to look for a job, more interested in doing specialized work on antiques and small aircraft.

On my aircraft the holes are from physical contact. I'm thinking this has a lot to do with all the loosness in the camlocks though there have been articles published that claim airloads are the problem, pulling the cowl up until everything contacts. My cowl has some issues all it's own since the 1st owner tried to land nose gear first and punched/wore a hole through it just ahead of the cowl flaps. The hole and the little aluminum L brace were not repaired in the best manner and I think that has contributed to some problems in the cowl flap hinges too. Anyway, I finally got my A&P so I'm going to tackle getting this thing back in proper order.

How many of you have had the exhaust pipe wear a hole in the right cowl flap of your 201? I've seen several but I'm trying to get a feel for how common this is. I'm redoing an old repair job on my cowl and replacing the camlocks so I'm trying to decide if I want to form a cowl flap with more clearance or adjust things better when I fix the fiberglass work that was jacked up years ago.

Short answer is yes. Take the normal precautions to keep water from puddling at the root of the blades.

Hard to beat that for efficiency. How many hours do you have on that engine now Parker?

If you feel uncertain about the 100 hour service items it might be money well spent to have an A&P walk you through it all and discuss the things you can do as "preventative maintenance" and how to do them correctly and safely. He should be able to show you the best way to enter them in the log books so it doesn't cause suspicion when it's inspection or sale time. Some things you may not want to do because of the cost of tools or equipment required. Just some things to consider. I always did my oil and filter changes and bought the tools to cut the filter early on. You may want to do that or not. The tools out now are much better and less expensive than back in '92 when I started picking up stuff I wanted/needed. Get on the FAA website and download the mechanics textbooks and the AC43.13s. Be sure you have your service manuals and instructions present and that should go a long way toward keeping you out of hot water with the FAA if an inspector should happen by while you are preening your bird on a fine day at the airport.

The preoiler you see in Trade-A-Plane wouldn't be what you want for cold weather. It's intended for aircraft that sit and have the oil drain off of the cam lobes and out of the plain bearings and such. The idea is to pressurize the system to reduce the wear when thing start to turn under power. The accumulator might very well do the same thing in a less complicated and lighter package. I'm not aware of any STCs for them but there may be some. MOROSO makes them for high performance cars.

I use one but the calibration is different from left to right. Not by much but I made a chart so I can tell exactly how much is in each side when I dip them.

"Not showing up on the EDM"? Maybe it's showing up in a way you're not looking for. A CHT or EGT difference or something. Does the problem go away if you are operating ROP? I'm thinking that if you have an ignition problem you'll find something definate like carbon tracking or a bad plug and it would get worse as the condition progresses. I'm wondering if you wouldn't get this syptom with an injector or upper deck seal problem that isn't letting the injector atomize fuel as well as possible. LOP you might not be able to get a good consistant burn and be feeling it more than being able to read it on the EDM. Just brainstorming. I'm sure curious to find out what it turns out to be.

I went over the whole firewall with a brush and solvent then 3m pads to clean the corners. Started in with the die grinder and 2" scothbrite pads doing an engine turning pattern on it. Doesn't look too shabby. I'll post photos when it's complete.

For the O&N caps you will have to determine what you really have. The caps were supposed to be replaced in the AD on the early bladder conversions but there was an alternate means of compliance allowing the flush caps to stay in place. Look on their website and you'll be able to see what to do.

You're probably going to have a mess on your hands when the racoon relatives try to spring the criminal from the trap. Might want to set it outside the hangar.

It still amazes me that the media can always find some turkey to shove a microphone at who says something like,"Yeah, I seen it go over an' it sounded lak ther engine wuz a tryin' tur quit an' finally it jus' did. It wuz turrible." It doesn't matter where the accident happens, there is always this one doofus they manage to find. I guess he's a cousin of the guy who always seems to see smoke an' "far coming out" when the plane crashes from running out of fuel.

Call LASER in Lakeport. They do the AD gusseting and can probably tell you what it costs for either a new one or a typical repair to the rod end since they have seen most of ours.

Tempest recommends the ohm check for their plugs to check for resistance issues. You might want to check your leads too. Trace them individually and see if you can see any indication that they have been arcing to nearby ground sources. You might want to have a look at your service records and run them past your most trusted engine man. Little things might pop out to him if he's looking for other possible causes.

This is my attempt to post after switching to Firefox. With IE it says I forgot to enter anything to post.