What Mechanical Faliures have you experienced in Mooney?

[201er]

What kind of stuff have you had fail on you in your Mooney in flight or on the ground (but not counting just sitting or during preflight)? What is the worst problem you have experienced and the outcome? What can we learn from this?

[carusoam]

Stuck valve and loss of oil pressure in prop. Two sepate events.

1965 C.

(1) Valve stuck after sitting for a year or two. Major loss of power on take-off. Held pattern altitude, normal landing. Replaced cylinder and bent valve. Ordinary day for my CFI that I had with me while burning off hours required by my insurance...

(2) Oil leaked internally from the plug at the crank. Rpm went to max.

(3) generator stopped functioning returning home from a long Xcountry. Battery gave out within 10 miles of home. Without much usable warning from the panel.

Solution... Get a newer and better cared for bird...

The second decade of flying will be better than the first...

Best regards,

-a-

[orionflt]

My mooney has been very dependable, the only major issue i have had with it has been the generator when i first bought the aircraft (replaced with an alternator) and the attitude gyro failed a few yrs ago. I did have to replace the cam shaft but that was found while the engine was torn down after the hanger door was banged into the prop during a hurricaine, no damage to the prop found during overhaul and pretty much just cosmetic damage everywhere else.

[Hank]

I had a total electrical failure due to a vaporized component on the small circuit board behind the panel light dimmer. It was on a training flight with my CFII; we had flown to CRW in the soup, did a nice ILS approach, T&G, miss and were below the clouds inbound on a VOR-A approach along the Ohio River. Lowered gear, hit landing light, lost all power.

 

CFII could not believe the entire Emergency section of my Owner's Manual was two pages. I completed cranking the gear down [4 turns] before digging it out of the seatback pocket. We flew home VFR below the clouds.

 

Vacuum pumps have a limited life, and I exceeded mine about this time last fall. The bobbling, bouncing AH was impossible to miss, and easy/fast to fix. The electrical parts, though, were really tough to find--I was AOG for three months.

[DonMuncy]

You missed one. Trim failure. Mine stuck in the "climb" position. I finally remembered that I could control the climb by throttle, and returned to land. At about 3000 ft, it began working again. Never did find the cause. It has been many years ago.

Also had an unused phone jack left dangling behind the panel and grounding, causing loss of communication. I was IFR and IMC. Fortunately the problem solved itself after 20 minutes or so (of which 15 or so was unknown to me).

[KSMooniac]

I had a gear failure-to-extend event when the electric motor quit.  The hand crank system worked as it was supposed to and I had an uneventful and damage-free landing.

[John Pleisse]

Stuck landing gear, the result of airspeed valve to gear switch. Loss of AI in hard IMC, just after I had purchased the plane. Both ended uneventfully. A litany of alternators, starters, gascolator valves, rigging issues, hangar rash, etc.

[Shadrach]

Let's see...

 

Mag

Vacuum

Generator (which led to comm failure, luckily I had a handheld)

Radio

GPS

[1964-M20E]

My 64E vacuum pump failed on an IFR flight at 8k to 9k feet, 10 minutes after departure  luckily with just a few clouds.  I returned to base and caught a commercial flight to destination.

 

My 67F engine died on roll out once.  I lost the hot start issue and towed it back to the hangar and then it started fine.

[1964-M20E]

Oh forgot lost the generator on the 64E model about 10 minutes before returning to my home airport.  I replaced it with the plane power alternator.

[co2bruce]

Had a rocker arm bolt back out of the head, stopping the valve from opening and closing. Lost the cylinder and made emergency landing. Bolt came through the rocker cover on the ground right after landing causing a big oily mess. Looking back it wasn't so bad but at the time it caused some seat pucker. Glad the rocker cover held until on the ground, it could have been a lot worse.  

[DaV8or]

In flight failures-

 

Partially clogged flow divider.

Stuck exhaust valve.

Generator failure.

Auto Pilot Alt hold failure.

Transponder Encoder failure.

Rear Nav light failure.

 

Not sure if this counts, but I also have had starter failure and that's the beginning of flight.

[Jeff_S]

I just had to replace the alternator but I caught that on the ground so I guess you won't count it. Other than that, in-flight I've had a few GPS outages but those always seem to come back so I attribute that more to the GPS system than my equipment. I did lose the Turn Coordinator in-flight, which drives my S-TEC 55 autopilot so that was a somewhat major issue (dang, I had to hand fly the plane!).  Occasionally my MX-20 decides to visit a "blue screen of death" that looks horribly like its Windows namesake, but luckily it always resets itself after a few minutes.

[Earl]

Lets see, starter, wiring harness for the mags, vacuum pump (not in IMC thank goodness), #2 Nav/Comm.  All in all pretty dependable.

[Joe Zuffoletto]

I've never had any problems with my Acclaim. The issues I had with my Encore took place during the first 4 years I owned the plane and boiled down to either pilot error or poor maintenance by a reputable Mooney service center that I was sure was trying to kill me. Once I switched service centers the problems magically went away and I flew the plane trouble-free for 7 more years.

 

Pilot error:

 

* Cabin door opened in flight (I allowed the pax to latch it; have been doing it myself ever since)

* Baggage door opened in flight (apparent preflight oversight on my part).

 

Maintenance issues:

 

* Repeated voltage regulator failures, leading to lots of popped circuit breakers and partial panel ops in VFR.

* Alternator failure during IMC descent from High Sierras towards Stockton, CA. Received an IFR clearance all the way to Napa from ATC before the battery died. Did not declare an emergency because I knew conditions were VFR from Stockton to Napa. Landed uneventfully in VFR conditions at Napa after manually lowering the gear.

* Alternator failure in VFR conditions causing all the oil to go overboard. My first and only flight in a glider. Had 5 airports within gliding distance so I did not declare an emergency. Successfully dead-sticked into Palm Springs airport.

[lamont337]

Mag - Plastic gear inside lost a few teeth.

 

After a normal run-up I was climbing eastbound from VGT when the engine started to occasionally hiccup. Power was okay and I was already cleared through the bravo so I kept a slow climb towards Nellis AFB (Thanksgiving Day, no fighters in the air). I was within gliding distance pretty quickly so I started troubleshooting. One click to the left on the ignition key and it smoothed out. Two clicks to the left (and this is where I went wrong) and the noise of the engine was immediately replaced by the screams of my girlfriend. Until that moment she didn't know anything was wrong. Probably should have warned her.

[jetdriven]

attitude indicator failure, alternator failure 3 times (once a loose field wire, once a broken field wire, once the output stud arced and melted because it was not tight), and one Bendix mag that quit 7 hours after install, infant mortality.

 

On a flight a couple months ago, the mixture cable fell off the servo in flight. Luckily it was in the midrange LOP setting, it made it back OK.  The factory connector has a metal plug on the end which backed out and allowed the cable to fall off the ball. It was cotter-pinned 100 hours before that, but something happened. i replaced it with a high-misalignment rod end to prevent future problems.

[201er]

Two clicks to the left (and this is where I went wrong) and the noise of the engine was immediately replaced by the screams of my girlfriend. Until that moment she didn't know anything was wrong. Probably should have warned her.

What happened? Did it continue to fly ok on the right mag after?

[carqwik]

In flight: TIT gauge failure, alternator failure, stuck ASI, landing gear partly retracted, stuck wastegate, clogged injector, prop governor (partial fail), attitude indicator, A/P VS and Alt failure, MP failure (disconnected line)

 

On ground: starter, dead battery, speedbrake, dead magneto

 

Some of these events occurred in rental Mooneys back in the 1980s and early 90s...

[BorealOne]

You missed engine control failure - I lost throttle authority (broken cable) necessitating an emergency dead-stick landing at CYZF.

 

I've also had GPS failure, Aspen failure, autopilot failure, horizon failure, alternator failure, and vacuum failure. I'm sure there will be other failures in my flying future - which is why I like redundant systems - I'm still flying because of them.

[mikesalman]

I lost my landing light 200-300 feet from the runway on final 8 days ago at 11pm. It was my 2nd night landing in my new to me M20F.

[Ned Gravel]

1.  Generator failure (twice)

2.  Radio failure

3.  Attitude indicator failure

4.  Flap failure (refused to stay pumped down)

5.  Landing light failure

6.  Spinner split in fllight

[lamont337]

What happened? Did it continue to fly ok on the right mag after?

 

Yes, made a u-turn over Nellis and told the approach controller we needed to return to VGT. Told them we'd like to maintain our current altitude (about 6k) until we had the field made, which they were okay with even though I didn't declare. When they passed me off to the tower at VGT they told me I was cleared to land on any runway and asked if I needed any assistance. They were all very helpful.

[Greg Ellis]

1) Engine failure (loss of oil pressure and increase in CHT's; engine quit on short final to an emergency landing)

2) Generator failure X 2

[stevesm20b]

Had both comm radios go out at the same time. Comm #1 stopped transmitting and when I switched to comm #2 and tried to tune to tower frequency the tuner nob broke. Had a baggage door open in flight, ripped off the interior of the door but the door otherwise held up. Never again let passengers secure doors.