First Annual Fun - Day 2

No new gotcha's today... Maybe the exhaust is the biggy and will stay
that way. The A & P said except for the exhaust the Mooney is pretty
clean and passing the inspections with no issues. All the control
surface, landing gear, electrical inspections are pretty much complete.
All the inspections should be finished tomorrow.

He did say that we needed to take care of a couple of tank seepage
points (leaks). I said "Hey it's a Mooney, they are supposed to leak"
but he didn't buy it. Now I get the fun of scraping all the old sealer
off using a couple of plastic scrapers and picks. It sucks but better
me doing it than paying them $60.00 and hour to do it. We will get rid
of the wing staining once and for all... Or at least for now :-)

I also took all the inspection covers and the belly panels to the parts
cleaner and got them looking like new. Actually between the scraping of
the tanks and the cleaning of the panels and covers my day was pretty
much shot. Hell I'm going to have to go back to work to get some rest.
This manual labor stuff is for the birds!! :-)

More to follow...

Jon Kraus
PP-ASEL-IA
'79 Mooney 201

The 'joy' of ownership is just beginning, Jon, just beginning...
denny

so what you are saying Denny is that I will be having so much fun I
won't be able to stand it? :-)

Jon Kraus
PP-ASEL-IA
'79 Mooney 201

Denny wrote:
The 'joy' of ownership is just beginning, Jon, just beginning...
denny

so what you are saying Denny is that I will be having so much fun I won't
be able to stand it? :-)

Boy, ain't it the truth?

Just curious: How are you going to seal the gas tanks after you've scraped
the old cruddy sealer out? How are you accessing the inside of the tank?
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jon Kraus wrote:

No new gotcha's today... Maybe the exhaust is the biggy and will stay
that way. The A & P said except for the exhaust the Mooney is pretty
clean and passing the inspections with no issues. All the control
surface, landing gear, electrical inspections are pretty much complete.
All the inspections should be finished tomorrow.

He did say that we needed to take care of a couple of tank seepage
points (leaks). I said "Hey it's a Mooney, they are supposed to leak"
but he didn't buy it. Now I get the fun of scraping all the old sealer
off using a couple of plastic scrapers and picks. It sucks but better
me doing it than paying them $60.00 and hour to do it. We will get rid
of the wing staining once and for all... Or at least for now :-)

I also took all the inspection covers and the belly panels to the parts
cleaner and got them looking like new. Actually between the scraping of
the tanks and the cleaning of the panels and covers my day was pretty
much shot. Hell I'm going to have to go back to work to get some rest.
This manual labor stuff is for the birds!! :-)

More to follow...

Jon Kraus
PP-ASEL-IA
'79 Mooney 201


Have you been asked to clean out the belly under the floor inspection
plates. My first annual, the A&P/IA said clean it out. It is amazing the
amount of stuff that can be in a '65 model Skyhawk. Old cut off
tiewraps, hardward from prior work, etc. Plus just the grime. It took
awhile. I even removed the belly inspection plates and cleaned from that
direction with help from mirrors and flashlights.

--
Regards, Ross
C-172F 180HP

I don't know the exact name of the stuff we are going to use Jay. It is
just some gray 2 part sealer. The tanks that are being repaired are the
17 gallon extended tanks and they are sealed from the outside rather
than the inside. You reach up through the inspection covers to do the
scraping. There are 3 places where there are going to be repairs made. I
am using scrapers of all shapes and sizes plus some dental pick looking
utensils. The scraping part is very tedious. May office worker hands are
getting very sore doing the scraping. I think I am going to ask them
just "how much money am I going to save doing this?". If the answer is
only a couple hundred bucks then I'll say have at it then... It ain't
worth it. I took the week off work to help out on the annual, learn
about the airplane and save some money. If all this work is only saving
me a couple hundred then it isn't worth it to me.

Today I repacked all the wheel bearings. Did some more tank scraping,
and put all the wing and tail inspection covers back on. It sounds like
all the inspecting part is finished. All that is left is the tank
reseal, magneto points and condensors, nose wheel bushings, and the
exhaust. All in all the A & P said that for our first annual this
wasn't too bad. It sounds like the bill will be around $5000.00. I was
expecting $2000.00. Silly me!! :-)

Jon Kraus
PP-ASEL-IA
'79 Mooney 201


Jay Honeck wrote:

so what you are saying Denny is that I will be having so much fun I won't
be able to stand it? :-)


Boy, ain't it the truth?

Just curious: How are you going to seal the gas tanks after you've scraped
the old cruddy sealer out? How are you accessing the inside of the tank?

On the Mooney the belly panels come off so they are inspected from
underneath rather than from above. But I did get to clean all the belly
panels using a parts washer. It all came off pretty easily. I get to
use mirrors and flashlights scraping the tank sealant off...

Now I remember why I switched from being a truck mechanic to a computer
programmer... :-)

Jon Kraus
PP-ASEL-IA
'79 Mooney 201

snip

Have you been asked to clean out the belly under the floor inspection
plates. My first annual, the A&P/IA said clean it out. It is amazing the
amount of stuff that can be in a '65 model Skyhawk. Old cut off
tiewraps, hardward from prior work, etc. Plus just the grime. It took
awhile. I even removed the belly inspection plates and cleaned from that
direction with help from mirrors and flashlights.

All in all the A & P said that for our first annual this wasn't too bad.
It sounds like the bill will be around $5000.00. I was expecting $2000.00.
Silly me!! :-)

Well, it depends on what he meant by that.

If he's saying an "annual inspection" *should* cost $5K per year -- get a
new A&P.

If, on the other hand, he meant that the annual went well -- but that there
were these other things that cropped up along the way -- well, he's still a
doofus for telling you that this "wasn't too bad." $5K ain't a "good
annual."

If, on the OTHER other hand, he meant that it could have been far worse,
well, he knoweth well of what he speaketh...

;-)
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

I think what he meant was that for a new owner's first annual that he
has seen a lot worse. Especially since it appears that our previous
owner had a a "friend" doing the last couple of pencil whipped annuals.
I found last years bill for $325.00. Oh well live and learn...

Jon Kraus

Jay Honeck wrote:
All in all the A & P said that for our first annual this wasn't too bad.
It sounds like the bill will be around $5000.00. I was expecting $2000.00.
Silly me!! :-)


Well, it depends on what he meant by that.

If he's saying an "annual inspection" *should* cost $5K per year -- get a
new A&P.

If, on the other hand, he meant that the annual went well -- but that there
were these other things that cropped up along the way -- well, he's still a
doofus for telling you that this "wasn't too bad." $5K ain't a "good
annual."

If, on the OTHER other hand, he meant that it could have been far worse,
well, he knoweth well of what he speaketh...

;-)

If you are implying that annuals costing $325 or less are all
pencil-whipped, we need to talk. Or you need to talk to some of the folks
that I do annuals for that cost $200 (max). Of course, they spend three or
four days unbuttoning, buttoning, greasing, and all the rest of it before I
get there. Rarely do you find an unairworthy item on a well
owner-maintained aircraft, so most of the cost is keeping at the maintenance
all through the year.

"Fixing" everything during an annual is not only dangerous, but sort of
silly.

I'm doing a Champ this weekend. Wanna come over and watch what an "annual
inspection" really is? We even have the spar inspection AD and a mag AD to
take care of and I doubt I will be there more than 4 hours. But then again,
the owner rebuilt the aircraft himself (he's built five or six homebuilts
and is a hell of a lot better woodsmith than I am) and could do the
pre-inspection blindfolded.

That's OK, after you do it ten times, you'll get the hang of it. What you
should REALLY ask your IA for is a list of items that (s)he sees that could
stand a little preventive maintenance during the coming year. Fixing it
before it really breaks is the cheapest maintenance you can have.

Jim



"Jon Kraus" wrote in message
...
I think what he meant was that for a new owner's first annual that he has
seen a lot worse. Especially since it appears that our previous owner had a
a "friend" doing the last couple of pencil whipped annuals. I found last
years bill for $325.00. Oh well live and learn...