Beard

I thought I had to replace my rails, but it ended up being the seat. Someone on this forum showed a picture where his seat cracked and mine had cracked in the exact same spot. I posted a picture of my seat crack too. Try searching the archives for seat cracks. What made it evident that it was my seat that was the problem was when I swapped the pilot's and passenger seats around and and the problem went away for my seat. I am building an RV10 with a few friends and one of them was the sales representative for Cherry Max rivets in Canada and he raved about these rivets. I had decided that if I had to change my rails I would definitely use Cherry Max.

Two pictures of center probe gone. There are three plugs in the pictures. The two on the right have the damage and the one on left does not and is there for comparison.

The engine on my M20J ran rough today. I pulled the plugs and two of the bottom fine wired (URHM38S) had the center probe burnt of, if that is the correct phrase. I installed them in January 2019 and flew 183 hours on them. I will contact Tempest to see if they can offer a credit on new ones.

As many have said, there appears to be two many holes. It does look like the factory one piece belly on my 1984 M20J. Mine uses cam locks.

Mine J is a 1984 and I believe it is the first year with the one piece belly pan. So that gets my vote.

N201MKTurbo, I would be very interested in purchasing one of your 360 angle valve cylinders. I would like to keep it as a spare for when I need it. If RoundTwo does not take them, I would like the option to buy one. Thank you

Is it not said that an M20J can pick up a few knots by having the cowl flaps open just a bit.

I have owned my 1984 J for 14 years and have flown it 700 hours and have had no issues. I have replaced two jugs and I believe they came with new gaskets, but I did not to my knowledge replace the other ones.

At my airport someone was making these and selling them. I bought one. It uses an aquarium pump and has a sensor that is supposed to shut it off when necessary. I have been told that having a closed circuit is the route to go. For mine, the desiccant air is pumped through the oil filler filler tube and comes out of the engine breather tube that is located by the left cowl flap in my M20J. I attached a tube here that recycle the air. I no longer take the expired desiccant home to put in the oven (which pleases my wife). I bought a microwave oven for my hangar that does the job of making my desiccant beads dark cobalt blue again within 3-5 minutes. Be cautious in that if you do not have a closed circuit with an automatic shut off and you leave the devise running too long you will be pumping ambient temperature into your engine. Someone on my field had a disaster when he left his devise running for four months over the winter when he went away. I have heard many different opinions on whether these devises actually work, but the common consensus is that they cannot do harm is used correctly. Before I hook mine up after every flight I leave the oil filler cap off for a while to let the obvious moisture escape.

I am afraid that my fuel cap(s) could be stolen when visiting another airport. I carry two tennis balls and duct tape that could be used to temporarily replace a cap if stolen.

I have an 84J with the Turbo Bullet conversion, so it has speed brakes too. If I shut off the master before I retract them they will collapse quickly and make a distinctive clunk. I do extend my speed brakes from time to time after I land to slow me down so I can use less brakes. May I ask why you have speed brakes on your 80J? What STC does it have?

I changed the plugs in my 84J a few years ago with Tempest fine wires, but only changed the bottom ones. The flying school at my home field only uses fine wires on the bottom clyinders on their twins as they are the ones that foul. I know this sounds cheap, but my J runs very well on just the bottom one changed to fine wires.

I started this thread looking for advice. I too am surprised that the checking for cracked seat supports is not an AD, etc. I suppose it will take a death for it to be mandated. My seat did not slide back during take off, but rather in turbulent air. I immediately swapped seats and the problem was gone for me. My passengers then complained because it was constantly sliding back. I am very pleased that I have now located the issue and the repaired part will be put into the passenger seat tomorrow and then reinstalled in the Mooney. I thank everyone for their input as it allowed me to focus right to the problem.

I too went to my hangar today to see if the problem could be solved with a simple bending of something. And, I too found a crack in the seat frame. Mine is on the opposite side to N5779Y, but very similar. See my pictures below. I will look to see if I can buy new bushings and rollers for when I put it back together. Does anyone know where I can buy these parts? I am very please with finding this problem as it has worried me for quite some time.

I own a 1984 M20J. The pilot's seat had a habit of sliding back in all positions except one. There was no issue with the passenger seat. I recently swapped seats and now the pilot's seat is secure in all positions, but the passenger's seat slides back. This leads me to believe that the problem is not the seat rails but the seat itself. I have cleaned out the holes in the seat rails. Does anyone have any advice or experience in this matter? Is there a specific part on the seat that needs to be repaired or replaced? Thank you,