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ltdoyle

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Just now, RobertGary1 said:

Are you sure that's the static drain? Sounds like the pitot drain. Yes, the valve just unscrews and you replace the 30 cent seal.

 

-Robert

It's a push button like the above diagram...you push to drain and maybe give a little side to side twist to reseal..Hm..pitot drain..there is a hole back of the pitot tube that you clear with safety wire to drain...mine iced up at altitude after some rain in a climb..the higher I climbed the higher airspeed indicated.Finally it was showing redline and I woke up and thought to use pitot heat...

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yep, the pitot tube itself has a drain, and the pitot line has the push button drain below the wing root. While the separate static line drain is below the battery. Older vintage Mooney's may only have the static line drain or none, but I believe their is a Mooney Service instruction and kits for adding them to older Mooney's.

I have yet to ever service my drain 0-rings. Maybe I should.

Similar story to Kelly's. My wife was flying, I was right seat, we were IMC at night. She says Honey, we're loosing airspeed. I start looking at the instruments, all indications where we were in level flight but airspeed was decaying rapidly. So I say, tell them (ATC) "we're going down!". Famous last words, but luckily she realized exactly what that sounded like as I said and didn't. By then my scan had widened to the GPS and I felt like a moron and said flip on the pitot heat. Two seconds later we had our IAS properly indicating again and laughed about it for the rest of the flight. This was all over the course of about 10-15 sec. But now it comes on when going IMC, since its too easy to forget as you pass into or above the freezing level. 

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Day two of fix the static system ended much like day 1 did.  The new drain valve o-ring and spring failed to resolve the leak.  I am going out tomorrow to give it one more try with a miniature valve lapping tool I have and if it fails to fix it then it's coming out and I will order the Lasar part.   One last kick in the..... knees was my ancient Narco AT-150 also failed a bench test and was deemed not worth the repair costs.  Upside is I might push up my ADS-B upgrade.

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Day two of fix the static system ended much like day 1 did.  The new drain valve o-ring and spring failed to resolve the leak.  I am going out tomorrow to give it one more try with a miniature valve lapping tool I have and if it fails to fix it then it's coming out and I will order the Lasar part.   One last kick in the..... knees was my ancient Narco AT-150 also failed a bench test and was deemed not worth the repair costs.  Upside is I might push up my ADS-B upgrade.


Your 74 should have the same alternate air valve as mine. Hopefully it has been inspected. I know mine has needed O rings a few times over the 26 years I have owned my Mooney.

Also, if you had any interior work done recently, I know of at least leak caused by a interior shop damaging the static line.


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2 hours ago, TonyK said:

Day two of fix the static system ended much like day 1 did.  The new drain valve o-ring and spring failed to resolve the leak.  I am going out tomorrow to give it one more try with a miniature valve lapping tool I have and if it fails to fix it then it's coming out and I will order the Lasar part.   One last kick in the..... knees was my ancient Narco AT-150 also failed a bench test and was deemed not worth the repair costs.  Upside is I might push up my ADS-B upgrade.

Have you tried bypassing or capping the drain to isolate the issue? You can disconnect the forward line from the drain and gently suck on it up to 1000 feet and see if the vsi settles to 0. Maybe you have a lean elsewhere?

-Robert

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Everything forward of the valve and aft is pretty solid now.  We bypassed it and were able to get a 52' per minute leak down. There is very little doubt that it is the drain valve at this point. I spoke with the owner of the shop and he was going to go out to his shop today.  He said he thinks he has a working AT-150 on a shelf that he will let me use until I decide to do the ADS-B upgrade.  Other than the frustration factor of fixing something and it staying broken I really can't complain. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Third time was a charm.  AT-150 off the shelf of spares cured the transponder and lapping the drain valve slowed the leak to 50'.  I have added the new drain valve to my list of squawks to be resolved at annual and my ADS-B upgrade is going to happen in a month or two depending on their schedule.

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