dhc

I had an unpleasant experience with morning sickness on my factory reman IO360-A3B6. The symptoms were classic: severe engine roughness immediately after cold-start for upwards of a minute, followed by smooth operation. The unusual part was that the engine was only about 1.5 yrs and 100 hrs SFRM. Additionally, as the attached EGT/CHT data shows, two cylinders were suffering non-combustion simultaneously. Valve guide coking seemed an unlikely culprit, with the only reasonable explanation being poor manufacturing tolerance at Lycoming. In any case, the purpose of this post is to share with fellow members: 1- The engine monitor data, which shows what the event looks like. 2- The fact that SB-388 data (procedure to measure valve guide clearance) produced clearly corroborating results 3- The fact that SI-1425A (procedure to ream valve guides) fully cured the problem. After it was done the problem has never resurfaced in over a year. All of the above are summarized in the attached PDF file, which was part of my warrant claim with Lycoming. I should point out that Lycoming (and AirPower, the engine retailer) were decent in their warranty response. After initially insisting that I pull both cylinders and sent them back to the factory for rework (Hell no! Didn't want the wear and tear on the engine even if they were willing to pay shop costs.), Lycoming eventually came through and paid for the field performance of SB-388 and SI-1425A at my mechanic's shop. So I am left with residual outrage that it happened in the first place, ameliorated by at least having had a good customer service experience, coupled with some appreciation at the engineering level that the data were so clean and the fix so decisive. Dan morning_sickness_data_summary.pdf

"there" not "their"...

It's not exactly original to praise ArtCraft but I'll add my happy experience to the mix. ArtCraft painted my 1979 M20J over 6 weeks between April and June. Coincidentally, I visited their shop as part of my research tour on the same afternoon as when Jolie Lucas was their for the subject of this email thread. Attached are before and after pictures. What I liked about my experience: - They displayed obvious familiarity with Mooneys - They completed their work on time, within one week of the promised date - Communications were good during the process, even despite National Guard duty of one of their key staff members - Their quote was in the middle of the shops I'd priced out, but because they did not nickle/dime me on incidentals such as minor fiberglass and metal repair, I believe my final price would have been on the cheap side of the distribution. - They "did the right thing" without my asking (or paying) for it: They applied sealant to the edges of my windows and windshield, and replaced rubber trims where cracked. Anyway, count me a satisfied customer. Dan Chang, N622DX

To Hillard: I have not noticed any speed degradation due to the engine replacement. I haven't noticed any speed increase either, however. Without wanting to open up a can of controversy, I'll say that I don't put much stock in contentions of the 25 deg vs 20 deg timing advance making a substantial difference in actual engine output. I *was* disappointed that my only 2-year old Slick mags both showed excessive points wear. Anecdotal evidence suggests this is common, and conventional wisdom is that replacing with Tempest points will make things better. I replaced them for both mags and now my starts (both cold and hot) are better. Sorry for the late reply. I seem to only have time to read Mooneyspace while stuck on long commercial flights these days... Dan

Used Plane Power AL12-P70 alternator for sale. Perfectly functional when pulled from my M20J when I did an engine swap to a factor reman. About 5 years in service. See photos. This will definitely fit any IO-360 Mooney. Check with Plane Power website for other effectivities. $250 + $20 UPS ground shipping anywhere domestic in original box. ($520 new at Spruce). Please reply to dhchang89@alum.mit.edu Thanks Dan N622DX

For Sale: RPM Pickup for JPI Engine Monitors. I had this installed in my M20J until 2015, when I replaced my engine from the IO360-A3B6D (i.e. Bendix Dual Mag) to the IO360-A3B6 (i.e. conventional Slick mags). I posted about the experience in this thread: http://mooneyspace.com/topic/15898-m20j-io-360-a3b6-conversion-experience/#comment-221002 The sensor worked with both my EDM-730 and EDM-830 engine monitors.The attached photos show both the unit itself and a picture of it installed on my plane. It's just a loop of metal with wires on it--hardly makes a difference whether it is "new" or "used." But of course I will honor returns if for some reason it doesn't work for you (you pick up return shipping cost). The attached graphic shows a screen-grab from the JPI website, and an excerpt from the installation manual. You can see that the new unit goes for $395. (!!!) I am selling this unit for $200 + UPS ground shipping. If interested, please email directly at dhc@jpl.nasa.gov Dan

To carusoam: By day I'm an engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Regards, Dan

10: Misc Notes * Even though the mounting points are exactly the same on both the –A3B6 and –A3B6D, the crankcase is not exactly. It is necessary to do some manual trimming with snips in the areas indicated by the arrows in the attached pictures. BE CAREFUL TO LOCATE AND RETAIN the four baffle nuts (two shown in picture). They fall out easily, and if you lose them or send them back with your core, Lycoming charges $25/pc. * We found it necessary to cut a new hole in the top baffle on the passenger side to naturally accommodate the harness, as shown in attached pictures. The remainder of the harness routing was largely the same as in the original –A3B6D installation. * Lycoming ships these days with the Hartzell ALX-8521LS alternator. I found that it was too large to fit with the existing baffle / airbox. It might be possible to do enough trimming to make things work, but I decided to reuse my Plane-Power AL12-P70 (a great alternator), and send the Hartzell back as part of the core-return. * Finally, note that overall the –A3B6 installation is tighter than the –A3B6D one, and your access will be a bit worse, particularly to the oil filter. In fact, since I have the Aerotech CV1J4 in-line vacuum installed (protects instruments from exploding pump vanes), you can see from the attached photo that it needs to be disconnected at each oil change to make room to remove the filter.

09: Magneto notes Lycoming ships –A3B6’s these days with Slick magnetos. Looking from rear of engine towards prop, the right mag is a Model 4370 (no impulse coupling, 0 lag), and the left mag is a Model 4372 (impulse coupled, 15 degree lag). In switching from the Bendix dual mag, there are a few issues to note: The P-Leads need to be re-wired from the Bendix co-axial connector to the separate hot/ground ring-terminal setup that Slick uses. Look at the attached photo. It is important to check if Mooney service bulletin #M20-59A has been performed on your aircraft, and to UNDO it if it has. This SB permits the removal of a shorting strap on the ignition switch whose purpose is to ground the right-mag P-lead when the engine is cranking. This is great for the Bendix dual-mag since both sides can contribute to the starting spark, but in conventional two-mag setup described above, the zero lag right mag must not be allowed to fire until the engine is at substantial RPM, for obvious reasons. The drawings in the SB are almost incomprehensible. I’ve include a couple of hi res pictures. The two terminals shown are the actual P-lead and the Horizon P-1000 tach pickup. If you have a JPI engine RPM sensor for the Bendix dual mag, it will not work with the Slick. You need to order the correct sensor. The same connector is used. In addition, in the (non-primary) EDM head units, you need to switch the “cylinders = 8” setting that would have been used for the dual-mag setup back to a conventional “cylinders = 4.” The reason is that JPI uses an inductive loop sensor for the Bendix dual-mag that is physically located at the center of the unit, so it picks up a current pulse from both rotating magnets, hence twice the number of pulses. If you have a Horizon P-1000 tach, you need to SEND IT BACK to the factory (“factory”: actually a 2-room office/lab in Orange County, CA) to make an adjustment, or else it will also read an RPM that is 50% too low. This is a primary instrument, hence it’s not user adjustable. Do this well before your engine arrives, so that when the big day comes to start your new engine and fly, you don’t end up being grounded as I was. Why the Horizon behaves this way is a bit of a mystery to me, and the woman at the factory was unable to explain, only to confirm that it needs to be done. Unlike the JPI magnetic-induction pickup, the Horizon receives its pulses directly from the P-Leads through shielded wires. My hypothesis is that in the Bendix dual-mag, there is enough cross-talk between two sides that even the spurious pulses picked up on both P-Leads from the other side are of high enough voltage to be counted by the Horizon, but somebody with a scope and more motivation than I do would have to confirm this idea.

08: The prop oil line that comes with engine doesn't fit! The prop oil line that ships with a –A3B6 from Lycoming is P/N 75167, and it interferes with the engine mount! This is explicitly true on my aircraft (1979 M20J, s/n -0851), and I believe the engine mount is the same for several generations of effectivities for the 201. “Dan” at LASAR came through for me by assuring me that Lycoming P/N 75730 would fit, and in fact it did (see photo). This line has enough “bend back in toward engine core” to clear the mount. However, it wasn’t exactly cheap: $293.72 + tax + shipping. When I called Lycoming to complain, they pointed me to the Lycoming Parts Manual which explicitly shows that P/N 75167 is what constitutes the “standard build” of a –A3B6, so they could do nothing for me in terms of refunding costs I had to bear to purchase the 75730 line. This strikes me as disingenuous, since Lycoming heavily markets the –A3B6 to Mooney 201 owners. Why are they unwilling to simply allow the customer to pick from their menu of existing prop line choices? Nice to be a monopoly…

07: Prop governor: gasket installation This was another place where data in the Mooney Illustrated Parts Catalog (which Mooney quoted back to me in response to my questions) conflicted with advice given from well known Mooney shops. In the –A3B6D installation, the McCauley prop governor mates to the engine accessory case with a sandwich of two gaskets and a spacer plate in between. This is the installation depicted in Figure 2, page 76-00-01, of the Parts Catalog (parts -48A, -B, -C). The Catalog and subsequent parts list do not show s/n effectivities on this gasket/spacer sandwich, suggesting that the installation is the same for any s/n M20J airframe (and, by implication, either engine installation). However, the accessory case for the –A3B6 is significantly different in the mounting face presented to the prop governor. See the attached photo “gov_adapter_A3B6.jpg” To cut to the chase, LASAR, Willmar, and the Lycoming factory all advised that only a single gasket (p/n AA-9144, the one with a screen) should be installed. It is p/n AA-9144, the one with a screen. See the attached photo “gasket_A3B6.jpg.” This installation has worked fine for me: no sign of any leaks in over 40 hours.

06: That new prop governor arm--correct orientation, and how to rig The –A3B6 installation requires a new prop cable rigging arm, which must be purchased from Mooney. These are the P/N’s: 660017-003 Prop cable clamp half 660017-005 Prop cable clamp half 660235-001 prop cable bracket 660235-003 governor bell-crank And the governing chapter in the Mooney Parts Manual is 76-00-01. The proper installation of these parts is completely opaque: neither the Parts nor Service manual contain any drawings to provide proper guidance. Worse, on Mooneyspace, there is an often-cited post with an ABSOLUTELY WRONG installation of the both the bracket and the governor bell-crank. I am including both the wrong photos (properly annotated) and correct ones in this post. Note: The proper orientation of the cable bracket relative to the engine The proper layout of the two clamp halves (“thin one on top”) The proper position of the prop cable metal collar in the clamp halves Proper rigging also requires that full prop speed be attained with cable all the way in (with sufficient “cushion”), and the degree of freedom used here for this model of prop governor (McCauley DC290D1-F/T22) is that the center part of the assembly rotates freely when the 6 allen head screws are loosened. Since the position of the center part is at an arbitrary clock angle when the unit is newly acquired, it is good to scribe the final rigged clock angle for future use, as the photo shows.

05: Prop governor: the ratio changes, what model to use? I got conflicting advice from various sources on these this question: will my old prop governor work? I do not have definitive data to say that my old governor would not. Perhaps someone with direct experience can weigh in. The information that I can directly vouch for is below: * My old governor model: McCauley p/n C290D5-J/T17 (consistent with what Mooney Parts Manual calls out for my s/n M20J) * Mooney Parts Manual calls for McCauley p/n DC290D1/T22, effective for airframe s/n shipped with –A3B6 engines * I received email from the Mooney factory that my old governor would work. I received advice from two well known Mooney shops that I should change my governor. * I got this email directly from Lycoming factory support, confirming that the prop governor ratio is different between the two engines (the ratio is defined as how many governor shaft rotations per engine shaft rotation): The Prop Governor data: A3B6D – Ratio is .850 A3B6 --- Ratio is .866 Both run CW. Hope this helps. Let me know if I can be of any more help. Regards, Frank E. Swinehart Field Service Technical Representative Lycoming Engines, a div. of Avco Corporation Ph. 570-327-7098 fswinehart@lycoming.com * I got direct confirmation from my prop governor overhaul shop (johnsonpropellor.com) that the data sheet for McCauley model # calls for full prop RPM at governor shaft RPM = 2340. This is consistent with the Lycoming-provided data: 2340/2700 = 0.867 Based on the above, I decided to install a model #DC290D1-F/T22. It has worked perfectly. I will point out, however, that the prop governor was the source of the biggest headaches overall in the engine conversion. Read on to the next couple of posts about the control arm rigging, gasket installation ambiguity, and oil-line conflict with the engine mount.