nels

I need some Ideas on what I can do on a budget and with the limited need to pre heat the plane. Any Ideas would be welcome (I even thought about running a dryer hose from my exhaust on my truck to the exhaust pipe on the mooney to see if that would help) Good news was the trip was late but still made and had a great flight. if you look up my tail number on flight aware it shows filed speed of mach 1.5 lol I thought that was funny. KRYY to KMQW in about 1 hour. I know thats nothing for the faster guys but im good with it for my plane. Again thank you for any info or if anyone knows how to build a cheap alternative. Chris

Do you by chance have the shoulder harness kit available?

Good info here. I've been concerned about such a problem but wasn't certain about what to do. The one thing I don't remember anyone mentioning is that the door needs to ne unlatched prior to the rough landing.

Will Brittain in Tulsa take your plane in their hangar and do the repair or do you need to send them the components.

I don't know if it's a good or bad plane but knowing the damage history and then seeing it has fuel bladders, for instance, I have to wonder if all the damage inside around the tanks is properly repaired or if bladders were just a quick fix. Maybe it had bladders prior to the accident but just another potential concern to check into.

I thought it was an interesting video; obviously a little bias but that's ok. He was the only passenger and he was obviously not carrying a large fuel load since he was headed out to get fuel. Also running lop and I think his comparison is against a 201 at book settings. Anybody ever do similar speed comparison with low fuel, no passengers, and lop?

Same here. A beer almost always sounds good. If you want the phone number of the instructor, let me know. Ill send a pm with my phone number.

Is the isolation fabric lever boot bunching up at the floor when the bar is pressed to the floor? I'm having a similar problem and I suspect the boot could be the culprit.

There has been a set on eBay.

I asked the mechanic about the use of alcohol in the tank and specifically isopropyl alcohol; his comment was absolutely not.....no alcohol of any kind. Says it ruins the tank seal and other plastic or rubber components. Anybody know if what he says is gospel or is he just spouting off?? I know I would feel a lot better if I could put a can of "dry gas" In the tank after I purged all the water I possibly could.

Its funny this topic comes up. We had water in the tank of our 177rg last week. I think it came from the fuel truck. We drained plenty out of both tanks but even after we thought we had it clean we were able to move the wings up and down, rocking the plane, and we got lots more out. Here is another question, is there any sort of fuel drier additive that could be used on occasion to dry out the tanks completely. Ok, I know alcohol is a.no no but so is water in the fuel lines when you bank the plane or hit turbulence. The incident with our Cessna sure concerns me.

Good points.

Not sure why ethanol is supposed to be "green". My understanding is it takes at least three bushels of corn energy to reap the ethanol for usage from one bushel of corn. In other words, for every gallon of ethanol run through your engine you've actually cost the environment the heat delivered from four gallons. Also, if adding water to ethanol has no effect on engine performance, why wouldn't you just add water at every fill up. Think of the range you could then get.

I mentioned earlier a simple rope and pulley or multiple pulleys for mechanical advantage if necessary. My reasoning with this setup is you would reduce loads on the tail hook since you could physically feel loads that were too high such as parking brake, wheel chocks or other obstructions. Electric wenches are pretty dumb, they do do exactly what you tell them to do. As I said earlier, I've never tried either method but I guess I am just cautious.

I would think you will have a problem getting traction with any powered assist device when going up hill with snow or ice on the ground. Why not a simple rope and pulley set up that connects to the tail tie down then goes to the back of the hangar through a pulley and returns through the center out to the front of the plane. With a setup like this you could easily change the ratio by adding pulleys in order to comfortably pull the plane back into the hangar by yourself. Could also get it all done for less than thirty bucks or so and no batteries to worry about. I've never done it but its what I would do given my vision of your circumstance. Of course if you need to back it up hill a hundred feet to get to your hangar door, that might be different.

I can see your point, unless I'm missing something. I'll bet that will be the last annual he performs on your plane.

I'll be at the airport tomorrow or maybe the next day and I will take another look at it possibly pulling the side of the cushion back but I have a feeling the seat back will need to come out. I'll let you know how it turns out. Thanks for the input so far.

Does anybody know how to pull the rear seat back out of a mid 60's E model? I need to remove it to get the plastic side panel back in.

Thanks for the info. The wear does concern me.

I'd like to exchange the left front seat with the right one. They appear to be the same with the exception of the seat belt or am I missing something?

I sent gave the governor to Maxwell Aviation in Minneapolis for overhaul. They checked the output while i was there and it showed lots of internal slippage, about 16 gal/min. We actually spent about half an hour at the test machine doing runups and discussing the data. He tore it down to inspect and gave me a rebuild cost of $850 which include a new sleeve valve (?) that fits in the bore of the unit. The sleeve is what appears worn as it is beyond tolerance and the bore measured well within tolerance. It should be ready by the end of next week. I asked him to send along the performance data after overhaul so I know what I have. The guy seemed to know what he was doing and also seemed capable of proper diagnostics.

We took the governor off yesterday and will have it tested today. As for the seal, I assume you are talking about the O ring on the nose of the crank? It was there but thought if it leaked then there would be oil on the ground?

What should a prop governor overhaul cost? We put a freshly overhauled prop on my 65 E model and the pitch will not change. It's been about six months since the plane has s it been run. We checked pitch with air pressure and it did change as it should.

There were pictures on eBay about six months ago of a E model mooney in Idaho on a 16 or 18ft car trailer. He had hauled it from California to Idaho. Engine and prop were on it but the tail section had been removed and was in the pickup bed. It looked a little too wide a load for my liking but he said he had no problems bringing it home.