A post 9-11 flight in fairly bad weather that included peculiar and particularly potent p-static (very strong squeals and pops in my Bose headset, several GPSS signal retention errors requiring recycling the AP and ATC communication difficulties) may have resulted in causing the trim fuse (F1) to fail and the loss of the AP.  This was repaired at a stop in Casper, WY.  The same "spike"  that whacked the fuse may have failed the IC.  I may have been flying for 2 years with a serious accident waiting to happen.  Luckily, I don't have to be anywhere at any specific time. I just have to be somewhere, as determined by GPS, most of the time - not counting out-of-body experiences.

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In any event, this is a dangerous condition in that IFR operation with a failing TC gyro could lead to an unrecoverable unusual attitude – just something that the AP was installed to protect this pilot from in the event of a vacuum failure.  There is no check that the gyro data is valid at all, or even present.  If the airplane slowly rolls over and enters an inverted dive while in altitude hold - thus "pulling" even more up elevator, the inverted series of descending loops will eventually wake up the pilot, shortly before impact.

The test I recommended pilots to make is not a certainty that things are working well – just that if they experience the ready light with the TC breaker off, there is a serious A/P problem they must correct ASAP, and certainly before entering IMC.