Shadrach

I won’t speculate as to the cause of this crash. I am quite sad about the whole thing.

I am more concerned with the fact that it does not look like the plane was climbing. He gained no altitude in 30 seconds of ADSB data.

I replaced mine at about that age. They were minimally compressed. They were also still quite flexible. Where they showed their age was in cold temperatures. I jacked the plane up in February and they took nearly a half hour to fully expand. I haven’t jacked up the plane in cold temperatures with the new ones for fear of being disappointed that the difference in performance is minimal. The reason mine were not replaced earlier is because they continued to pass inspection per the maintenance manual. I finally replaced them on general principal because it was embarrassing to have shock discs in service that dated to the Johnson administration. If I’m honest, there’s zero difference in feel from the cockpit. 45yrs old vs never installed/new:

Easy mistake to make. I’m a bit of a car/Porsche geek so that’s why I caught it. Not trying to be pedantic, I just thought it was relevant to the discussion about the conversion. As far as I know, the TSIOL-550 is the only liquid cooled powerplant ever installed on the M20 airframe and it required some fairly involved modifications.

I don’t believe that the M20L was liquid cooled from the factory. The power-plant was the same as the one in the mid 80s Carrera 2, which they offered as a one year lease with the purchase of a new M20L. Porsche did not make a production, liquid cooled, flat six until 1996 when a 2.5L liquid cooled H6 was introduced in the original Boxster.

From your manual: CAUTION 3: DO NOT ATTEMPT TO PUMP MORE THAN 1 FL. OZ. (30 ML) OF GREASE INTO THE LUBRICATION FITTING. USING MORE THAN 1 FL. OZ. (30 ML) OF GREASE COULD RESULT IN OVER SERVICING OF THE PROPELLER. VERIFY THE OUTPUT OF THE GREASE GUN BEFORE SERVICING THE PROPELLER. CAUTION 4: OVER LUBRICATING AN ALUMINUM HUB PROPELLER MAY CAUSE THE GREASE TO ENTER THE HUB CAVITY, LEADING TO EXCESSIVE VIBRATION AND/OR SLUGGISH OPERATION. THE PROPELLER MUST THEN BE DISASSEMBLED TO REMOVE THIS GREASE. (8) Pump a maximum of 1 fl. oz. (30 ml) grease into the lubrication fitting, or until grease emerges from the hole where the lubrication fitting or hole plug was removed - whichever occurs first. What you've posted and what the manual says are not quite the same. Based on your comments, I don't think that you understand that there is no seal on the hub side of the blade bearing race. I have seen multiple prop issues on multiple airplanes from overservicing. Hopefully, you did not really "fill it up" as that will cause the blade seals to herniate when the piston is actuated. If you think that you can "even out" the grease by pumping both sides until it pushes out the other zerk hole, you are mistaken. Grease pushed into the prop bearing race can migrate out of the race on the hub side before getting to the rear zerk fitting hole. This is why they limit servicing to 1 fl. oz. I hope it works out for you! The Georgia weather may have helped you dodge a bullet as the grease is less viscous at higher temps, so it may have pushed out the back before overfilling...

Just as an aside. Vibrations in the cockpit are not always directly related to propeller balance. I was recently dealing with a minor vibration in cruise and a pronounced vibration any time the prop was driving the engine. This was due to some movement in the position of my exhaust pipe and it's hanger. The pipe had migrated ever so slightly in the ball joint causing the hanger to just kiss the firewall. This caused an almost undetectable harmonic in cruise, but at low power with the prop driving the engine, the mounts compressed just enough to increase the contact between the hanger and firewall. It was very noticeable and I had to fully inspect everything ahead of the firewall to catch it. Such a small thing but it had a huge effect on N, V, & H. Make sure that everything firewall forward is tidy and secure with no rubbing or interference.

Did Cody tell you to do that?

We had a mid-air at FDK in 2014. A Robinson R44 and a Cirrus SR22 collided in the pattern. The R44 was ascending and the SR22 descending on downwind. The main rotor took out the landing gear on the Cirrus. The Cirrus occupants walked away after a CAPS deployment. R44 had no survivors.

I think it may be leaking at higher vacuum levels. It seemed to operate fine on the ground prior to being disabled. In the air I needed full, right roll trim to sustain level flight.

My PC is INOP right now after being trouble free for years. I sent out the T&B for overhaul and replaced all hoses with 27073. It worked ok when returned to service but seemed to favor left turns. It gradually become worse and worse so I disabled it. Perhaps the whole problem is that there was a misfire on the correct tubing. I’m going to replace it all with 27043 this weekend and see if that clears up the problem. You may have just helped me solve the mystery.

I was advised by a Brittain employee to use Gates 27073 1/4” ID. The surgical tube style tubing that I used to buy from LASAR would dry rot inside of five years. It never failed mind you, but it looked terrible. I’m two years into the gates tubing and it’s holding up very well.

I am curious; why would you want to do that? The strongest selling point of vintage machines is their simplicity and lighter empty weight. @Ragsf15e and @hammdo does the electric trim with the GFC500 actually spin the jackscrew and trim the whole empennage or does it just allow for electric manipulation of the elevator position?

The operating manual for my F calls for 18.6gph at full power and full rich. @PT20J is absolutely correct in that fuel flow is not field adjustable. It is adjustable by the overhauler. Years ago, I had my servo overhauled locally by a Bendix fuel system specialist. I asked that it be set as rich as possible within spec. When I reinstalled the servo all of my takeoff EGT‘s had dropped into the high 1100s or low 1200s. I’m not sure what the fuel flow was it that time because I did not have a transducer installed. I can say that my takeoff EGTs have gradually become leaner since I first installed the servo. My takeoff fuel flow currently runs between 18.5 and 19gph. It will be interesting to see what the numbers look like this winter. Managing EGT‘s was never really a problem, but the engine has run very cool since the servo overhaul about 12 years ago.

OK, well the Surefly installation muddies the water a bit.

At closed throttle, high vacuum scenarios, yes. In climb at wide open throttle, an intake leak isn’t going to have much of an effect on mixture unless the leak is huge.

Whoops…misfire on my part. My apologies! I know that you’ve received a lot of Lycoming specific information from the factory over the years. I have never timed a dual mag. Do you have any insights as to why the optional 20° timing is prohibited with D suffix engines? Having flow behind my engine when times at both 20 and 25°, I prefer 25°.

I seriously doubt that this is a timing issue. I run maximum advance in my engine for the TCDS and it runs much cooler than yours. I would start by thoroughly inspecting all baffle material. Do not neglect to check the internal baffle seals in between the cylinders. With a relatively new installation, there can be multiple factors that are causing problems. Indeed, you could have a baffle seal issue and also if you flow issue. I’m of the opinion that 17.5 GPH is not adequate full rich fuel flow for an IO360 departing a sea level airport. Your fuel servo may need to be serviced.

Has the TCDS been changed? The copy thatI have does not authorize 20° timing. In fact, it specifically excludes setting an A3B6D to 20°.

The ideal buyer for the remaining assets is Univair. They’ve cracked the model for maintaining profitability by manufacturing parts for orphaned type certificates. They understand the business side; they understand the regulatory side. Mooney doesn’t need more dreamers to keep the fleet flying. They need an experienced manufacturer that already understands how to be profitable selling parts for certificated aircraft.

My comment was sort of tongue in cheek. I hope I’m wrong, but what I see happening is the following: The parts section of the website will remain off-line to the general public. Parts distribution will be tightly controlled. Factory parts are going to be outrageously priced (think Bonanza parts from Textron). The Mooney Assurance Program will offer members direct to consumer purchasing through the parts portal with parts being discounted from egregious to merely outrageous.

To build on @Hank’s point, owners of vintage Mooneys are accustomed to a reduced level of factory support. Vintage Mooney owners most certainly chose their aircraft based on operating costs/performance. I budget about $130 an hour for dry operating cost for 100hrs of flying a year including hangar and insurance. I usually do better than that. Modest support at a bronze level represents a >15% addition to my annual operating costs. So where is the value proposition? My sense is that when the new pricing is introduced it will be more clear as to why LASAR believes this is a viable strategy.

The rear seat recliner on the M20F is less complicated that a bicycle brake. Removing the seat back entails pulling a spring loaded pin on one side and “rocking” the seat back away from the boss. The other side of the seat has a fixed pin and can simply be pulled away from its boss after the first side is disconnected. The long side of the lap belt will come out with the seat. I mean no offense when I say that given that the above was not obvious from simply looking at the mechanism, it might be a good idea to enlist the help of someone inclined towards mechanics. The set up is not complicated, but it can be a pain to reinstall because one must align the lap belt mount with the seat pin and the seat boss all while holding the seat pin in the retracted position. There is not a lot of room to work and it would be easier with three hands.

We’ve been worried about it for 58 years. I’m sure it will fail someday; as they say, it’s just a matter of time. To put things in perspective, in the time that it’s been trouble free, we’ve been through three engine tear-downs, countless mag overalls, to prop overalls, one prop governor, countless spark plugs, a fuel server overhaul, I could go on…but I’ll get back to worrying about that mechanism having issues.

@takair