jelswick

My Mooney's interior overall looks nice and clean, but when I bought it 3 or 4 years ago, the yoke shafts didn't have that nice chromed look. I had the interior redone and the yokes leather wrapped, but I'm curious if anyone's had any luck restoring a nice shine to the shafts. They almost look a little rusty as shown in the attached photo. I've tried basic metal cleaner cloths like you can get in an auto store, but it didn't make much noticeable difference. Any products or method anyone recommends?

This forum is always excellent and helpful; thank you for everyone's responses! I'm going to ask about the bead blasting and repaint and see if that might work while it's in the shop. Job, I used Aerocomfort (http://www.aerocomfort.com/) to do the yoke recovering. They did a beautiful job, but were a little pricey. I believe it was something like $700 for them and don't recall if that was each or for both. Great work though and the yokes really needed it when I bought it, so I had it folded it into the aircraft financing. Alan, you're right, the loss of contrast makes the 396 almost unusable over there and requires I do the same contortions to see the weather on it. That's unfortunate because it really is a great unit. I'm thinking when I do this about paying to remove the DME and ADF (the ADF indicator is coming out anyway to shift other instruments and the AI to the right) and moving the KX 165 over to the right and the 396 to the center stack to fix that. I looked on eBay this weekend and it looks like there's actually a decent market for the used DMEs and ADFs and will use whatever i get out of that to put towards these upgrades. I'd love a 696, but am still happy with the 396 and I should get the geo referenced approach plates on the Aspen MFD. Can't wait! Thanks again all and have a great Thanksgiving! Jim

Hi all. I have an '81 J going into the shop in two weeks for two of the Aspen units and an Stec 30 to replace my failing Century 21 AP. I've seen a few new panels installed on here and am curious what it typically costs to have those done, powder coated and silk screened for placards. I really don't even need to move any holes around in mine, but if it's not that expensive I'd be interested in that as an aesthetic upgrade. The current panel is shown below. One other question is that I'm getting the Aspen XM weather receiver and since it has up to three outputs, I'm curious whether one can be connected to the portable Garmin 396 to replace the antenna currently used for that unit.

Abe, sounds like you made several of the same mistakes I did. You at least looked around first though! I'd done my reserach and knew you shouldn't set your heart on the first one you see, but after researching what was in the market, I fell in love with the 63 M20C I bought when I saw it. I too let the broker pick the pre-buy inspector (not a good idea) and do a fresh IFR cert, etc. End result, I landed at CMH bringing her home at night with the altimeter more than a hundred foot off, the avionics shop installing the GNS 430 for me telling me the fuses were a soaked fire trap, etc. My first annual was over $5K at a Mooney service center and the next year my local maintenance person (l love and trust with my families life by the way) had a $9K annual bill for me to take care of the rest of the items that had been neglected over the years. Any regrets? Only trusting the broker to take care of me which I knew was not a good bet in the first place. Other than that, it was relatively maitenance light for the few years I owned it after that and I loved the aircraft so much my wife would ask me why I don't walk away from her backwards staring lovingly too like I did at that Mooney! It turned out a wonderful airplane and I now have an 81 201 that I bought from a very reputable Mooney expert broker in Minnesota that has been almost no maintenance (knock on wood) for over 3 yrs. Just a dream of an airplane that I love every time I'm in it and my family appreciates for the magic carpet it is for us. Best of luck to you wrapping up your license and you'll have years of wonderful memories I'm sure in your Mooney! Jim

I had 12.5 hours in my logbook when purchasing a 1963 Mooney M20C. The insurance company tried to tell me students in Mooneys were not a good idea by the rate they charged me (about $3,400 if I remember correctly). It did take me a lot longer to get my license (about 80 hrs), but I was bit hard by the bug, new I wanted to buy and I wanted to buy what I believed I'd want to fly long term. I thought I was joe airline captain landing the Cessna 152 smoothly after about 6-8 hrs total time, but I basically had to relearn to land when I got the Mooney. My instructor told me a few times half jokingly "if you don't learn to land this today, we need to put a for sale sign in the window!". It was a lot of fun and no regrets. I picked her up on a Dec 23rd from Fargo, ND with my instructor and both of our wives told us if we didn't make it back to our families in time for Christmas, we might as well just get an apartment together there in Fargo! That was about 700 hours ago and now have an 81 J. Love these aircraft!

I had a whopping 12.7 hours in my logbook when I purchased N6886U, a 1963 Mooney M20C. The insurance company tried to tell me students shouldn't be in Mooneys with the first years insurance premium at about $3,700, but I really wanted to buy what I wanted to fly long term. I loved it and got both my private and my instrument rating in the aircraft. It did admittedly take me a lot longer on my private though. I thought I was Joe Airline Captain landing the Cessna 150 at about 6 hrs total time, but it took me another few months to land properly once I got 86U. I remember my instructor 1/2 jokingly telling me "if you don't learn to land this thing today, we need to put a for sale sign in her window!" I picked it up in Fargo, ND to fly her back to Columbus, Ohio December 23rd, 2002 with my instructor. I've never seen cold like they had there! And both of our wives told us that if we missed Christmas with our families over that flight, just go ahead and get an apartment there together, don't bother about a return flight! It was the best Christmas present I've ever had and I logged about 500 hours in the M20C and have put about 200 on the M20J I purchased after selling the 86U. No, they're not in my opinion a great student's aircraft, but I have no regrets over that decision. My daughter refers to the airplane as "Jim's other woman!"

Thanks again everyone for all of the replies and helpful feedback! It has been more than helpful and I know now where to turn anytime I have questions on Mooneys! It looks like I'll have the Aspen and STec30 going in at the end of this month based on the shops schedule and I can't wait. Have a great flying weekend all! Jim

Wow, what a great resource this forum turned out to be! A wealth of experiences and thoughts received in the same day I'd posted it. I'm very glad I found this forum. Thank you very much to everyone for your experiences and thoughts on this. I at least feel much more well informed going into this. The shop yesterday dropped the estimated install time to 65 hrs for the Aspen and they are good people; I just reminded them that I prefer to come to them when I know I'm being treated fairly and that is an estimate; if they don't have to use all of that time, I expect to not be billed for it just because it's on the estimate. We'll see. Either way, I very much appreciate everyone's input and Brian, you mentioned your deployed right now; a sincere thank you for everything you're doing there for all of us here back home. We wish you a safe, speedy return so that you can get back here and get that monster upgrade done on your panel! Jim

My Century 21 A/P was on the blink (great only if you wanted to make left turns!) and reading articles on cost of troubleshooting/fixing, I decided at Oshkosh this year to buy an STec 30 and an Aspen and have the avionics shop starting the install in Sept. When I talked on the phone, the prices the avionics shop mentioned were about $13,500 to install the STec and about $12,000 to install the Apen EFD 1000 Pro. Now the written estimate has come in about $4,500 higher than that (only about $500 higher on the Stec at 50 hrs labor, but $3,400 higher on the Aspen at 95 hrs labor). Does anyone have experience having these installed in their M20Js or similar and how much did they turn out? The shop manager is telling me this is kind of an unfortunate Mooney penalty because for example he can't just slide in and screw in the servos in the wings like a Cessna, he instead has to build them in the wing due to the space available in the wing (like building a ship in a bottle I guess). I've owned Mooneys for about 9 yrs and just not used to this kind of upcharge based on brand. Any experience with these will be appreciated. Thank you.