Sabremech

7 hours ago, MB65E said:

Great project for you David. We all figured your last airplane wouldn’t be the last. 
I’d leave it original and invest the effort in better things. Hope you bring it to Oshkosh!! How’s the corporate gig and Warbird? 
-Matt

Hi Matt,

Good to hear from you. It’s going to be impossible for me to leave it 100% original. I do have an interested party that I talked to about my plans and they love it. They feel the same as I do in regards to the rear windows. We’ll see what does or doesn’t get done! I’ll have to post pictures of the fuselage covered under a sheet now! 
The corporate job is crazy busy as always. That’s why the Mooney progress is much slower than I thought I could get done by now. As for Warbird, we have the jets for sale. It was in our plan to sell them about now. The P-40 IRAN is coming along nicely but still expect it to be two more years before ready to fly again. How’s everything out West? 

David

1 hour ago, 201er said:

So, no GTN 750, G5s, sloped windshield, or sabremech cowl mod? 

I can’t tell at this time! Will have to be a surprise!

David

34 minutes ago, Barneyw said:

Hi David

That looks like a fun project. Is that a standard field break position of the empennage on all Mooneys or just early models?

Cheers

Barney

 

Good morning Barney,

This is the standard break apart position for all Mooney’s. The number of bolts to hold the tail cone on has increased over the years by model.

Thanks,

David

22 hours ago, Kodiakflyer said:

Never mind David. I read your thread.

My project is similar 30 months in and have not made it public.

Great looking bird! 

On 8/23/2024 at 8:47 AM, outermarker said:

I flew 5261B for 10 years. A good wax will keep the wings very slippery! There is another wood wing in a hangar at Hinkley Airport in Illinois, just west of ARR. It's ready to be picked up. The guy bought it for the engine.

 

Any information for the guy at Hinkley you can share? Not that I need another Mooney, but you never know what parts might be needed in the future. 
Thanks,

David

10 hours ago, Kodiakflyer said:

David, have you located the parts required to comply with M20-161?

The Lord discs are easy...Spruce. It's the rest...

Hi Tom, 

I purchased the used parts I needed from Alan Fox. I believe he’s on MS but can message you his contact info if needed?

Thanks,

David

Catching up a bit to the current status of the M20. Here’s a few more pictures of this bird. I love the old avionics switch which is a choke cable attached to two switches tied together on the engine side of the firewall. Simple but works. Also a few other pictures of the wood wing along with the instrument panel and aux fuel tank. 
David

39 minutes ago, Fly Boomer said:

I'm stunned by how nice that wing looks.  All you did was wash and wax?  Looks gorgeous.

Yep. I was amazed at what was underneath the barn dirt! I still have to clean the tailbone before re-installing it. I’m planning to rework the back windows as I absolutely dislike the teardrop window. Going to make it look more like the later C window. Perfect time to do this work is before putting the tail cone back on. 
David

First thing I wanted to determine was still in airworthy shape was the wood wing. Second was the engine internals and then trying to start it. The wing is in good shape with just a patch or two required on the fabric. The engine was borescope and looked clean and two short duns have been completed. The engine mounts were in really poor shape and the engine sagged so much into the firewall that I couldn’t get it to idle below 1300 RPM. Throttle was bound up with the gear warning switch that is mounted on the engine side of the firewall. New mounts were installed and waiting to run it again after upgrading the gear disks IAW S/B M20-161. Nose gear is almost complete then on to the main disk changes. 

4 hours ago, AJ88V said:

This is for Sabremech's cowling? (sorry, pretty new here, so not sure what everybody has on their planes)

I see it's on a M20C model.  Would you be willing to share the paperwork that went with this?

The open baffles look tons simpler to maintain and work with.  Even better if it cools better (and my 1970 C doesn't cool as well as I'd like, especially in climb, even modified with adjustable cowl flaps).

I can share with you the data you request. 
David

Those are the old Firestone disks and are un-obtainium new. I just removed a set from my M20 and am complying with Mooney S/B M20-161 to install the later style Lord disks. 
David

Adding to the M20 story, here are some pictures of the disassembly and moving from Gary Indianna to Waukegan IL, UGN. It took about 6 hours to disassemble by myself and the load the tail and tail one in my trailer. That was done on a Saturday. On Sunday I came back south and loaded the fuselage section on a 36 foot flatbed trailer with help from a friend. It was a fun drive around Chicago. 
This all happened pretty quickly as I received pictures and talked with the broker on a Thursday and when I asked how long I had to move it the answer was by the upcoming Sunday. Time to get moving. 

9 hours ago, jetdriven said:

Did you notice if it cooled better?

It did cool better. Several factors I believe that helped in that were closing off the area behind the prop and ring gear with baffling along with the exit air below the cylinders being equal on all four cylinders. The gaps were adjusted to all being the same. That came from reading about airflow and cooling from a Reno air race engineer. 

David

Most MSers are probably familiar with the M20 that I picked up. It was listed here as a Free M20A in southeastern Wi. It ended up not being an A model but a straight 0-320 powered M20. 
I thought I would start a separate new thread to share bringing it back to airworthy. I’ll update this thread as I do the “ inspect and repair as necessary”, or IRAN. 
This will be probably a year long process to get it flying as my full time job is quite busy and I commute 5 hours home on weekends from Southeastern Wi. My plan is to get it flying, fly it a bit and then sell it. As much as I’d like to keep it long term, it’s just too expensive and I’m not willing to spend that kind of money when I’m done working full time in a year and a half. I’ll start updating this thread from the beginning to where the project is today. 
Thanks,

David

I used Vans RV baffling for the mods I did to the four cowlings. # 1 and # 2 baffles aren’t tall enough for the Mooney cowling and I made those pieces as I didn’t want to rivet on extensions to fill the gap. 
They are great baffles and fit well along with easy to assemble and install. You can add the little bit of sheet metal on this front two cylinders and be in good shape for quite a while. My FSDO liked that I used known parts for my mods. 
David

I ended up inspecting the spark plugs as they are fine wires. Cleaned and rotated them as I usually do. Ground run was good with idle at about 650-660 rpm. 
The owner flew it yesterday and reported no issues. We’ll continue to monitor to see if this was a one off occurrence. 

3 hours ago, LANCECASPER said:

Spark, Fuel and Air.

I had an airplane that every once in awhile would stumble after landing and died a couple of times. The resistance in the Champion plugs was very high. I put in Tempest fine wire and never had the issue again.

This one has the Tempest fine wires installed.

Thanks,

David

37 minutes ago, PT20J said:

RSA servos don't meter fuel according airflow below about 1200 - 1500 rpm because there isn't enough air flow through the venturi and into the impact tubes to create the necessary differential pressure across the air diaphragm. There is a spring in the regulator that holds the ball valve off the seat to let some fuel flow into the metering section but the mixture at low throttle settings is controlled by a mechanical linkage on the throttle to an idle mixture valve. At high density altitudes, as the airplane slows down on the rollout with the throttle closed, there isn't enough air and the mixture will be too rich. You cannot really fix this by manual leaning during the let down because you'd have to lean so aggressively that the engine wouldn't run above 1000 rpm. The solution if it starts to die is to just give it a little throttle. If it's doing it all the time, adjust the idle speed and idle mixture.

Happened once. Not a common issue but something entirely out of the normal for this aircraft after all his years of flying. The owner puts at minimum 100 hours a year on his airplane. 

I have a few things to look at and Will do so. Plan to fly it Friday after looking it over and doing a ground run or two. 
Thanks again,

David

It’s a non turbo J model. Owner is high time in this airplane and this is not normal for it. Appreciate some ideas to just verify. 
Thanks again,

David

12 minutes ago, EricJ said:

This did come up a while back, and there was a lot of thought about where the mixture control was left during approach.   If the idle is set low and it's full rich at high DA, or too lean at lower altitude, it may have difficulty idling against the stop.    More annoying than catastrophic.

This was in the Midwest and it was warm but I don’t  believe anything out of the ordinary. Idle setting hasnt been an issue or mixture setting either. Pilot has 3000 plus hours in this bird and it’s the first time this has happened to him. 
Thanks again.

19 minutes ago, M20F said:

And we are off to the races!

35 minutes ago, Fly Boomer said:

I'll bet it was a Continental.

Nope! Lycoming IO-360 in an M20J. 

Pilot reported an occurrence of his engine quitting after landing on rollout. It was re-started and taxied back to the hangar without further issue. I thought I read this happening to another MS’er before. Open to thoughts on what to look for. 
Thanks,

David

14 minutes ago, GeeBee said:

My grandfather died of CC. My brother had it and beat it but it was a close run thing for a while. In two instances doctors have removed polyps from me that would have undoubtedly resulted in cancer at some date. So I am a walking poster child for the effectiveness of the procedure. The anesthesia risk is very small because they use propofol, a very clean, well tolerated and short acting anesthesia (unless you name is Michael Jackson). The risk of a perforated bowel is real, but is usually caused by inexperienced and non-board certified physicians who think it is easy. You want to go to a board certified gastro with a large endoscopy operation. They get the big bucks and drive the Porsches because they know what they are doing......but they have to deal with a-holes all day.

I’ve said my piece. We are all genetically unique. Your family history does not have anything in common with mine. 
Thanks and best to you.

David

12 minutes ago, M20F said:

I appreciate your mechanical skills, your hard earned ratings, years of experience wrenching, up blocks/down blocks, etc. 

One day I hope you view health professionals the same way I view your skills/resume and trust their years of teaching, licensing, and experience to keep you and your family safe.  
 
Had I been as diligent in my own health as my Mooney’s health, life would be better. 
 
All the best David. 

Again, I never insinuated your skills aren’t top notch. Unfortunately, not all of them are at your level. 
I feel I’m being diligent in my health and happy with my decisions so far. 
All the best to you and hope we cross paths in the future again.

David

12 minutes ago, M20F said:

How do we get true mechanical care and skill from our AP/AI community?  Are you a quack?  Do your customers (me being one) think you are a quack?  Or is it maybe we recognize and respect you might be smarter with a wrench than we are and seek your advice?

My only advice is don’t let a great skill set in one profession to make you believe you are an expert in another.  

My situation would have entirely been prevented with colonoscopy at 40/45/50 as recommended.  Instead I just went with the ain’t nothing wrong why bother and 52/53 were rough years. 
 
Cannot stress enough that Michael Jackson OD’ed on propofol for a reason.  It is the best part of a colonoscopy.  
 

I don’t mind you sharing your thoughts, but don’t appreciate the I’m right and your wrong mentality. I didn’t post my feelings or reasoning behind my decisions to get lambasted nor did I ever suggest you were a quack. 
I will continue to appreciate your knowledge on Mooney’s but am done with you on this subject.

David