Hi All,
I just returned from my first business trip in N252DR, a 1986 252 Rocket. She had been parked for a while before I bought her but Jimmy Garrison & Don Maxwell provided an accurate assessment of her condition. Maxwell finished an extensive annual the last week of August & the flight home from Longview TX to Ocala FL was nearly trouble-free. Last week I made a 1700 mile trip to Columbus OH, Destin FL, then back to Ocala. A few (hopefully easily fixable) bugs appeared and I'd really appreciate a little crowd-sourced troubleshooting advice. Here's what I found:
Panel lights, which were working, went inop. Instrument lights worked fine and so did my three flashlights that I rechecked en route when I realized the panel lights wouldn't come on.
EDM-700 tach wildly erratic. Ship's tach worked fine. No sign of actual RPM fluctuation.
Ship's CHT gauge wildly erratic. EDM-700 CHT steady on all 6 cylinders.
Occasional weak & unreadable on comm 1, a G530W. Switched to comm 2, an old King 165, and was loud & clear.
KAP 150 autopilot preferred to stay 100' below selected altitude and about 10 degrees right of selected heading. En route GPS nav would often try to fly 10+ degrees difference between DTK and TRK. HSI was spot on during GPS approaches.
I do have a digital copy of the 252 maintenance manual, parts catalog, & POH which I am happy to share with anyone if they need it to help me troubleshoot these problems :-)
Any advice is much appreciated- I've been out of the aviation world for a while and am thankful to find this great community on Mooneyspace.
Thanks!!
P.S. does anyone have an electric tow bar for sale?