garytex

I had an IO-360 A1A done by John Jewel Aviation in Holly springs Arkansas (and be advised there’s another jewel aviation out there that you can look up by accident) that now has about 200 hrs. Used new Lyc Cylinders and new case. It’s great. He is also a good place to go if you want to keep low time cylinders as he has his own cylinder shop. Only one mechanic assembles your engine. Price was very reasonable, great value.

Nothing? I get water in the same place in my 67F, but had never chased it down to the opening latch. As a matter of fact my cover is over that latch so that doesn’t make sense. There’s a little vent pretty close to that same spot down near the wing fillet that I had suspected. Opinions?

Mine on an F is stupid loud, especially on TO. I wonder if a teenage hangar elf has been at my flame tubes?

The above is good advice

The only variable pitch (as opposed to constant speed) prop that I know of was on the first year of production Belanca Cruismasters, the 14-19 series, around 1949-50. Pilot set the pitch, and engine would slow if climbing and speed up in a dive. Lycoming O-435 engine. Airplane was tube and rag taildragger with RG like a DC3. Triple tail and really pretty wood wings. Next year and thereafter produced with an O-470 and CS prop. This was a follow on to the 14-17 series powered with 150 or 165 hp Franklin engines, some with Aeromatic props that would automatically shift to a higher pitch after leveling off. Fuselage was designed to be a lifting body, made for really Art Deco looking plane. Still see a few around.

My advise would be to seek a more local airplane. Close means that you have lots less sunk costs in running all the pre-buy traps. Have patients, learn to land in someone else's plane, something will probably turn up locally while you are learning to land.

I found a 170 (4 place 145 hp taildradder Cessna high wing) much easier to learn to land (not counting the ground run) than the 150 (two place trainer). Landing well involves both decelerating and going downhill at the same time. The process of understanding how to wind up with no excess energy (speed) at 0 feet above ground level was easier for me to understand in the slightly heavier wing loaded 170. I kept getting blown around in the 150, masking learning the process. I think a 180 Hp 177 with two folks aboard would be great to learn in. Free means less pressure to learn fast-- thats also great. Grab it!

The weather channel weekly planner is pretty handy too

The observation that observation of comming trouble spots has avoided problems is so spot on. And it's just mechanicly and physically a little harder to do on the Mooney. Then there's the mental problem of "seeing". We've seen all this stuff before so it's not worth looking at again. Sometimes I have a hard time getting in the right frame of mind to look. I'll play a couple of mental games. One is to pick a perspective and look at every thing in the field of view: every connection, every attach point, mating surface, every gasket, every fastener, every Tye rap. Then move and do it again. Another trick is to follow every system to its distal points. Another trick is to get somebody else to look at your motor. I see stuff on my friends engines that they don't see and vice a versa. All of these are very worthwhile exercises that can save money and prevent breakdowns, increase dispatch reliability and safety. Lots of eyes passed over that hose fitting, it was a while till someone saw it.

I still don't understand how/why a 231 with no intercooler would be 20 - 25 kts faster than the RayJay F. Are they that much slicker? 10 hp sure isn't going to make that speed difference. Must be lots slicker, either that or maybe the comparison is 'book' vs 'real world' speeds.

Bellville has it right. Check the lines in and out. Look at takeoff EGT's see if they make sense vs indicated fuel flow. Bends in the line take the top off indicated FF at high flows. Also look for missing fuel at fill up. Maybe the missing 2 gallons is the unrecorded take off low indicated fuel flow. Some of the ways I puzzled my way through the same issue, albeit with less gauge under reporting. "Fuel injection is more even cyl to cyl but the FF sensor is only measuring total flow. It's possible the sensor is not installed properly... the tubing must be straight near the sensor. " Flowscan is the go to fuel flow meter in the marine world. They use multiple air bladder pulsation dampners with the exact same flow sensors JPI uses. There needs to be a few inches of straight line in and out of the flow sensor. We aren't going to carry around the weight of the dampners so need to install per the directions. Or understand when and why the gauge is lying.

Most folks who successfully adventure work up to it stepwise, and have an old hand teach them the basic first steps and rules of the game. It's when we jump and find ourselves unexpectedly in over our heads that we wish we hadn't. That kind of flying sounds fun, but scary, and as a flat lander neophyte with no old hand around, not for me right now. That being said, gliders ride mountain waves for hundreds of miles, it would be really cool to use them on our trips. Even 200 fpm would be good for 20 - 30 mph, wouldn't it? Any old hands out there care to share the basics? Thanks, Gary

What we really need is his technology on that horrible square bellows intake.

Well I would like to hear how yours turn out, and 'How much costee?' I'm hoping to find ailerons where I can go look at them, or talk to someone I trust who says "they're straight" If a C aileron will fit I have one exchange for 16 lbs of Hogdon Tightgroup smokeless powder. Great way to do business. Gary

M20Doc. Just looked at the Williams site. I think that these are the reskin guys that I have a bid from. I'll check. Jetdriven had some ailerons reskinned that did not come out straight, and the reskinners said "sure enough, we do not guarantee them to be straight". Part of the reason I'm seeking alternatives.

Jetdriven, thanks for the heads up M20Doc, Yeah, time to round up the usual suspects. I'll start that soon, but wanted to run the traps here first.

My plane (M20 F) got hailed out, and it's soon time to paint. The hail dents are too deep to fill and the aileron still balance. So I am thinking about comparing reskin to buying out of a junkyard. Does anybody know which ailerons will interchange? Or anybody have any good straight ones floating around the hangar? Thanks, Gary

Condors wear out fast. Personal experience. Avaition Consumer after extensive testing showed the deeper the rubber tread, the longer the wear. Flight customs and a dresser retread called Monster lasted longest, and had the lowest cost per "landing".

Sure, may be a while, plane down for OH and paint

Mc Farland has a drawing for a replacement modified at my mechanic's request to change from a solid wire core with a bug nut to a y shaped end that attaches with a small nut and bolt to the actuating end. This is the fix we did, and works great, and obviates the work harden/break off cycle with the solid wire core.

My understanding which comes from Alcor and another source that I cannot remember is that the break over temperature for the bromine lead scavenger to work is a function of gas temperature in the head, which is higher than the gas temperature at the EGT probe. The number is 1200° but of course we have no way to measure it. But engines at idle are lower than that temperature.

Strictly a mental exercise, I wonder if an intercooler would make an appreciable difference in your heat loading. Thats what seemed to make the 232 really shine, as the 252. But lots of weight, plumbing, and complexity.

Regarding ECI's demate-remate, thats a tricky operation that yielded a recent (you start to suspect you have been around the block maybe a few too many times when you start thinking 5 years ago is "recent") large AD on cylinders subjected to that process that were to be repetitavly checked closely for separation at the head barrel joint, and then thrown away after one overhaul run. I had one of those demated cylinders not subject to the AD that started leaking at the joint. This cyl came to me through an MOH by Custom Airmotive in Tulsa, and Mark, who runs the place had some stroke with ECI and I got good warrantee service through him back to my local mechanic. Mark, and several other good shops in that area use a plater who turns out good work. The plater grinds the cylinders oversize to knock out pitting and scoring, then plates back to nominal size. Mark then does the rest of the OH service. Valve guides, sources pistons etc. Several shops here in Central Texas use his cylinder overhauls. If you like your cylinders check with Mark. He may be able to fix them. But I agree with the above posters, if you do not have good cause to think that your cylinders have less than 4000 hours on them then the game gets much trickier. Yes, those of us with unknown history rebuilt cyls are between a rock and a hard place when their time comes. The angle valve cylinders are single source Lycoming so they hose us on price for new ones. Therefore the overhaul pool of cylinders gets very little new blood, and there can be some really high hour cylinders being traded around. This parallels the new vs OH situation that existed for all cylinders pre1995 before there were so many nice new cheap good PMA cylinders. Re-using those high time cylinders resulted in short service life for overhauled cylinders. Now, on most cylinders there are reasonably priced cylinders both from PMA and from Lyc and/or Continental. So your chances of getting a reasonable exchange cylinder is much improved. But not for us angle valve guys. I had a couple cylinders fail the wobble test so last August I bought two new Lyc cylinder kits to replace them. One of them ran hotter than a firecracker. 8 thousandths out of round, and then Lycoming kicked it back for warrantee. "Oh this cylinder is fine, you keep it." I had since purchased a third cylinder to replace the OOR one, and it broke right in and ran cool as a cucumber. I called Lycoming and suggested that in this day and age of easy communication that kind of customer treatment would absolutely have results that were economically undesirable. I mentioned Mooneyspace, and indicated that I would also be all over the Cardinal Flyers, and whatever the Arrow forum was, (these are the other users of IO360 engines), and that I would figure out which 6 cyl engines were angle valve engines, and which aircraft used those engines, and sound the alarm there too. After about a week and a couple of polite but insistent phone calls Lyc indicated that they would honor the warrantee on the part, but not pay my mechanic for the R & R. I haven't seen the refund yet, but they say it is coming. Even with this experience, (and i am now having to replace the other two cylinders) I have purchased two more new Lyc cyl kits, because I saw the results of aged cylinder overhauls prevalent back in the day before the overhaul pool received it's injection of new blood. Old cast aluminum work hardens, fatigues, certainly cracks, and I think may somehow may move in a plastic sort of way, possibly explaining some valve train ills that seem more prevalant in high time cyls. I love the angle valve heads. They make more power out of the fuel we pour into them than the parallel valve heads. Maybe enough to offset the higher price over an overhaul run. But in the instant case the pricing sucks. Being subject to a single source supplier sucks. An alternative theory would be replace with new, then your major would be cheaper when that time comes, as you could just overhaul YOUR known age cylinders. Of course this doesn't work if your cam spalls and sends metal through the engine, trashing your new cylinder walls. It's a toughie to know what to do. Exchange cyls from a good overhauler seem to last around 1000 hrs. If it's that long (or less) till you do the bottom maybe exchange cyls are the way to go. That is the conventional wisdom. I'm not sure either way.

Thank you for tailing the time to post. In my dreams your airplane goes faster than that. I thought that drag would fall off faster with altitude than it evidently does. Thats still blistering along, though. And I bet it's nice at high airports. And when you can catch some of those 50 kt tailwinds. Gary

Wash the cover, wax/coat the windshield seems to be the best combo.