wylie

I had a Battery Tender connected to a Gill 35 battery in the M20C last year and came back the next day and had a battery acid all over the battery box, firewall, and hangar floor. I believe it was due to a failed cell in the Gill battery however, not due to the BT. I had used the BT for years without previous problems. I now have a Concorde sealed battery to avoid any problem like that again, and the BT is working fine with it, despite what the site says about it.

I put a 2 blade Hartzel Top Prop on my 67 C a few years ago to clear the prop AD. Overall happy with it with 2 exceptions: 1) too much blade leading edge erosion in rain, and 2) too many SB's on the long polished spinner that was required with the original STC. I wanted to keep my short spinner but was not permitted. Hartzel stated at that time they wanted to have the new look of that long pointy spinner to go with the Top Prop. Big mistake. It looks out-of-place on the C model and has apparantly had some severe cracking problems in service. They now are offering a composite spinner replacement, unfortunately of the same long pointy configuration. Or I can put on my old short polished metal spinner, but that requires pulling the prop again since the adapter ring is not compatible. The other significant 2 blade vs. 3 blade advantage I have not seen mentioned here is one less blade to pick up prop ice. That just might make the difference in being able to get on-top or not sometime. The bottom line is clearly a 2 blade is the best way to go on these classic airplanes.