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Fuel Cell Reseal DVA


orionflt

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My C model Mooney was built in 1961, I have owned it for over 10 yrs and in that time I have had some minor seeps but nothing causing me to need a full reseal. earlier this year one of my original fuel drains started dripping, when I went into the tank to replace the drains I found that some of the sealant from an earlier repair was bad and the tanks needed to stripped and resealed. Talking to weep no more they were booked up thru the beginning of next year so I did a temp repair to get me in the air with minimum flying until the tanks could get worked on.

Of course after putting way too many hours into the temp repair I happened to talk to Dave (DVA) and found out that he has everything to strip and reseal Mooney fuel cells. after a short conversation I felt confident in his knowledge to do a good job on the repair so I asked him when he could do it, his answer... when do you want to drop it off! since I was already set to go to Osh I said I would drop it off when I got back. BTW Dave's shop is a 6 min flight from my airport, I literally took off  made a right turn entered a right base and landed. so much better then the full day trip to Minnesota and commercial back.

After I dropped off the plane, Dave asked if I knew when the tanks had been resealed, I went back thru the logs to an entry I remembered from 1985 stating the tanks had been resealed prior to the aircraft being painted. Looking thru everything I could not find anything clearly stating that the tanks had actually been stripped clean prior to resealing. Dave confirmed that it looked like I had original sealant still in the tanks from 1961.

Thru the whole process Dave kept me informed of their process and sent pics. They found what I expected or already knew, the only surprise was another batch of bad sealant on the lids from the repair. he sent pictures and update, I went and looked at the progress several time. the shop is neat, clean and organized, everybody is paying attention to details. As mentioned earlier, my plane was last painted in the mid 80's and the paint is showing its age, I have areas where the paint is missing and the reseal process can strip paint if your not careful. I told Dave I wasn't worried if there was any damage to the paint when I dropped the aircraft off, Dave's Crew still masked off the aircraft to minimize the paint damage and even tried to color match my paint to do touch up after the reseal. 

When I went to pick up my plane I had several nice surprises, first was they had redone my wing walk (It really needed to be done), and cleaned up the aircraft including vacuuming up the interior. the plane had been fueled to my specifications and ground run verifying good operation on both tanks. the best surprise was that the repair cost came in less then originally expected!

I know Dave's shop has only been open for a year, but being an A&P IA myself I was defiantly impresses. actually I am impressed enough that for my next annual I'm going to have Dave do it so I have another set of eyes that i trust look at the plane.

Thanks again Dave.

Brian

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Very nice words, Brian, thank you from all of us here!

Shout out to Paul at Weep No More who has been very helpful and is always willing to answer questions. Paul is the the foremost expert in this process, and if you're in his neck of the woods that's where I'd go.

The folks at Wet-Wingologists in Florida and of course Don Maxwell in CA are both known for excellent work and customer service as well. There are others.

Best news is that there is a community of people who care about Mooney's and will provide them and their owners with proper and quality care.

Fly safe!

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