Watch that ceiling center post

[Mooneyland]

I haven't scoured this forum to see if there has been any discussion on the upper part of the Mooney tubular structure, but we had recently found a 231 that was in the beginning stages of corrosion at the upper center tube. This was not on an otherwise corroded airplane, in fact the lower tubes were in perfect shape. What is aparently happening to cause the rust is "sweat" or condensation from temp and humidity changes. That upper tube is very thin in mil specs and it won't take much to have rust penetrate and eventually seperate or at least extreemely weaken that tube. That particular section of tube is responsible for helping hold the engine mount and the weight it carries, so any breach in that tube could affect safety.

When I was a Rocket dealer some years back I remember asking Charlie Dugosh what his opinion was on the Rocket and Missile conversions. He felt fine with the Rocket as it was mounted in a K model airframe. His concern was for early 201's being converted with the heavy six pack Missile conversion that used the Bonanza engine because early 201's had a more light weight upper ceiling tube than the 231, at least to the early '80's models. After that time Mooney used the same structure on both models. His concern was later down the line if that center tube corrodes at all it could have disasterous effect on the airplane. We had suggested to Darwin Conrad of Rocket that he includes a doubler installed on that upper tube in his conversion but don't think he ever did. So far there have been no failures that I am aware of, but our fleet is not getting any younger so it would be prudent at some point to remove your ceiling panels or at least loosen one side so that you can pull it down to take a look at that center tube. If you see any rust forming at all, then it would be necessary to pull the ceiling all the way and determine if any of the rust found has penetrated the tube. If so, treatment of the rust plus installing a doubler would be the cheapest cure.

If any of you want to see photos of the potential problem, I have written an article about it here: http://www.mooneyland.com/check_your_tubes.htm.

 Fly safe,

richard zephro; Mooneyland.com

[MooneyPilot231]

Good info, wish I had known that 2 months ago when I had the plastic out re-dying it. Those of you contemplating pulling your
ceiling panel be forwarned, it can be done by one person because I did it, but I would not recommend it. The ceiling plastic is in two pieces, front and rear. They are connected in the middle by 3 screws that can only be acessed from above the panel so it comes down in one piece and as you begin removing screws it becomes somewhat a house of cards with much pressure being applied on the screws you haven't removed. This can lead to brittle plastic being damaged. (hindsight 20/20) Pulling down one side as Richard suggest is definitely the way to go if you are working by yourself! I had the SB done on the frame corrosion at the pre-buy annual and there was very little but that would have no influence at all on the type of problem described above. Thanks for the info Mr. Z.

[Mooneyland]

Yeah, some of the ceilings in Mooney's are single piece while others are two pieced affairs. No matter, they're all a pain and when the ABS ages enough it will crack like egg shells. What I normally do to repair those is using a fiberglass kit; roughing up the rear side of the ABS and apply the fiberglass and resin. On the face of each panel where you've repaired a crack you can fill that repaired crack in with a tube of body putty, lightly sand after it dries, and then repaint your panels.

I've tried everything including the expensive plastic dye, but by far my best results have been in using several light fogging coats of Rustoleum enamel which eventually cures very hard and I use a spray gun and compressor. For the beige interiors I normally use the Almond color and for grey accents I get White and have them add one shot of black so it gives a kind of Oyster color that is used in later Mooney's.

It may take a full weekend to do the complete job on all of the panels, but worth it in spades as it makes the inside of the plane more pleasing to look at and gives the feeling of added space.

Get rid of those ugly yellowing ABS panels! We need to keep our Mooney fleet as young looking as possible and make 'em better than they were before.

You can see results here if you'd like: http://www.mooneyland.com/current_projects.htm 

or here: http://www.mooneyland.com/current_projects.htm, or here: http://www.mooneyland.com/201%20ride%20pimped.htm

Fly safe,

richard zephro "zef" Mooneyland

[Mooneyland]

Oops. I duplicated one of the links. Should be: http://www.mooneyland.com/Interior.htm,

http://www.mooneyland.com/current_projects.htm,

and http://www.mooneyland.com/201%20ride%20pimped.htm

Sorry,

zef Mooneyland.com

[MooneyPilot231]

Did my repairs as described above. This whole thing is a complete pain but the difference in the way the interior looks when done is truly night and day. Well worth the effort.