Now a maintenance question for youse guys regarding the gear warning horn system, specifically the throttle switches. Reading the Maintenance Manual Landing Gear section it says that the gear horn will sound upon power reduction at around 13-14" mp; our right throttle switch seems to be adjusted properly, but the left throttle will trigger the horn at around 18+" mp or so. We'd like to tweak it down a bit, but can't find any guidance in the Mx Manual; page 4F24 makes a brief mention of the existence of the switches and how to remove/replace the horn assy, but not a peep about how to adjust the switches.

I did remove the throttle quadrant side cover and found the switches with flashlight and mirror, but access looks tight... has anyone had to tweak these things? Any words of wisdom to attack them?

Do throttles seem synchronized in cruise?
If you set both at 18" ar ethe throttles aligned with each other?
IE is it a switch problem or a throttle cable adjustment problem?

Yep, the throttles are matched. This ship (600A) was a "barn find" brought back to life by The Flight Shop; they did a fine job on the engine control rigging... throttles/props perfectly matched and RPM right up to 2575 RPM on takeoff.

Have barely flown her at all, so can't tell yet!

But my cowl flap doors are always open and the closing has been disabled (a high failure rate item those motors, apparently). Prob loses you 5kts at the top end, but keeps cooling at max always. I'm not too worried at the power settings I'll be running, but if you want to go really fast it might be an issue.

The thing I'll be worried about is the dual mag. That's a bad design (with a single point of failure), so will try to stay on top of the maintenance of those. I've heard they should be overhauled every 500hrs to stay healthy, so I'll try to adhere to that.

Interesting tidbit - the SII doesn't have VG's or any limitations on low speed handling, due to the contra-rotating props.

Nice!

Speaking of recent acquisitions, here’s the 600A a buddy and I bought in January; a ‘79 early Piper build with original interior and engines, only 1530 hrs TT! It was a barn find resurrected by the previous owner at the Flight Shop in Utah. We’re gonna be cautious with 47 yr old engines, but compressions are good, minimal drip/leaks and very low oil consumption. Paint is rough, but we’re okay with that for now… we’re still in the giggle phase, this thing is just a blast to fly.

It’s been a long time since Aerostars and Chieftain were front and center, but, IIRC, if it has a D at the end it has a dual mag. The accessory case can be changed to give the engine two individual mags. That change makes the engine a TIO-540-J2B. One thing I definitely remember is removing the dual mag at every 100 hour to check/reset/replace the points. There’s a lot of heat in the engine compartment and the cam followers on the points don’t like it. If the follower wears down enough and the retard points won’t open, the engine won’t start. Other than that, the mags worked good, but a lot of mechanics are too intimidated to work on them. It’s not really that difficult, just time consuming. In over a decade running a fleet of 12+ Chieftains, I don’t recall ever having a mag failure that caused an engine failure.

I have a spare set of S1A5 engines with only 250 hours on them but they were not properly stored and have pitting in the cylinders. They are probably cores only.

I also have a pair of IO-540-S1A5 (MM) engines with under 50 hours SMOH, but they are prop strike engines and are scheduled to go out next month for inspection .

I have lots of 600 parts if you happen to need anything for your 600.

Thanks,
Frank