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"

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?

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"

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

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.