Vacuum pump failure

[Gatlin Gun]

13 hours ago, Tx_Aggie said:

Thanks for the response, typo in my part,  century 41 autopilot as well. We’re on the same page with the budget needing to catch up!! Are you in a J also?

Ha!  Ok, I was wondering. Century 4 was new to me.  

And no, I have a M20K Rocket...  I'm told the Century 41 is "still a great autopilot", but it's given me a LOT of trouble (including yesterday).  Also, the approaches won't couple with the G5s and the Century 41 either...fyi.  

#ReallyReadyForANewAutopilot 

[dominikos]

Piggybacking on this discussion. Went for a flight today and had High/Low Vac light come up a few times on the annunciator panel (M20J). It only happens at idle and goes away with higher rpm. Is this an early sign of vac pump failure?

thanks, Dominik

[Tim Jodice]

2 hours ago, dominikos said:

Piggybacking on this discussion. Went for a flight today and had High/Low Vac light come up a few times on the annunciator panel (M20J). It only happens at idle and goes away with higher rpm. Is this an early sign of vac pump failure?

thanks, Dominik

In my experience yes. I got about 75 hours out of the pump that came on the airplane and it would need about 1000 rpm to turn the light off. The new pimp works all the way down to 700 rpm and makes the light flicker at 600 rpm.

[EricJ]

The regulator and manifold are typically separate from the pump.   If the filter is good and there are no big leaks in the system (which are the first things to check), the regulator can be adjusted up a bit if necessary.

Not making sufficient vacuum at low rpm is not unusual, though.   My AV-17 alarms on low vacuum, so I can't turn it on until climb-out or I have to listen to it going off constantly.   I then have to either shut it off or ACK it on final or it gets annoying, as well.    I'm looking forward to eventually getting rid of the vacuum system completely.