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Tue Jul 09, 2024 8:49 am

We just returned from South Dakota road trip. The roads we travel don't even have shoulders at times. The most dangerous place to work on your van even a simple tire change is on the shoulder of a highway. Too many distracted drivers out there. The others are in a race.

An existing fuel pump failed, a new one was quiet at first and is now making noise. Personally, my life is worth more than a cheap ass part. I think your van is talking to you and you aren't listening.

There seems to be at least two camps. One camp believes the adventure of traveling in a van is the break downs, the places you end up in and the folks that help you out of the jam.

The other camp, believes breaking down interupts the adventure and listens to their van and does as much preventable maintenance before hitting the road. I'm in the second camp. If all I am doing is driving and worrying, its just not pleasurable at that point.

Tue Jul 09, 2024 10:53 am

Jocoman, from Ottawa you’re even farther from the US border than I am in Kelowna (140km). I’ve also done this before but it’s usually not worth a special trip.

Tue Jul 09, 2024 12:19 pm

Per Mark Ward’s well-placed comments two posts up…

I well remember Lucas Valdez’s comments on The Bus Movie about breakdowns being, paraphrased, “an adventure” — a good year before we bought a Vanagon.

I looked at the Missus and asked, “Are we absolutely sure we wanna buy one?”

Not sure I’ve answered that question yet, now a dozen years later... :roll:

Tue Jul 09, 2024 12:24 pm

harvgwen wrote: Thanks Ron. I’ll keep BusDepot in mind for part ordering. Have you looked into the option of pre paying Canadian duty at the time of checkout? In addition to the actual shipping cost, the shipping company usually needs to pay Canadian duty for the parts (which in itself is reasonable). They then charge what I consider to be exorbitant “brokerage” fees. There is no way of knowing what these fees will be beforehand, nor is there really any recourse, the buyer just needs to buck up and pay it. The end cost is often double the price of the part.
That’s a common problem, and very misleading in my opinion, as the carriers (and retailers) rarely disclose the huge "balloon payment" you're going to be hit with at the end. But not if you buy from us. We've been shipping to Canada for almost 30 years so we know how to avoid it. Right off the bat, our negotiated shipping rates INCLUDE free brokerage (as well as about a 50% discount on the shipping itself), so it's already included in the shipping quote. (There can be isolated exceptions, most notably large items going by ground, but even then we can generally switch to another service to avoid it.) You will still pay a nominal processing fee, typically about $10, but frankly the carriers generally hide that upcharge in the price even if you prepay duty. Of course there is also the duty itself, but we take pains to categorize our parts in such a way as to minimize or even avoid it (to the extent legally possible of course). Often you end up paying extra duty just because the seller used the wrong tariff codes for lack of experience. A minor difference can sometimes double or triple the duty.

Tue Jul 09, 2024 12:26 pm

E1 wrote: Per Mark Ward’s well-placed comments two posts up…

I well remember Lucas Valdez’s comments on The Bus Movie about breakdowns being, paraphrased, “an adventure” — a good year before we bought a Vanagon.

I looked at the Missus and asked, “Are we absolutely sure we wanna buy one?”

Not sure I’ve answered that question yet, now a dozen years later... :roll:

Its not a story till the train crashes into the station. :wink:

Tue Jul 09, 2024 12:28 pm

How many times? :wink: :lol: :wink:

Tue Jul 09, 2024 12:35 pm

It's an adventure.

Tue Jul 09, 2024 12:52 pm

That’s exactly what Burt Reynolds said to Jon Voight on a random canoe trip.

Tue Jul 09, 2024 2:16 pm

In GA no less. SoooooeeeeEEE!

Tue Jul 09, 2024 4:54 pm

Ron, that being the case, I will definitely be buying parts from BusDepot in the future.
Harv

Wed Jul 10, 2024 5:40 am

I would like to try the Walbro pump. I believe it is a model GCL-603.
Does anyone have a link to a vendor with stock and reasonable price. I'll have it shipped to a US border town and pick up myself.
In canada it would be about $300 to my door from a candaian supplier. Ugh!
txs

Wed Jul 10, 2024 9:44 am

The source?

https://walbrofuelpumps.com/

You could find a UPS Store franchise that's convenient and have it delivered to them. I'd call and arrange it with the manager.

https://theupsstore.com/

Wed Jul 10, 2024 10:22 pm

In my experience UPS charges a hefty brokerage fee on items shipped to Canada. But I haven't had stuff sent to a UPS store.

Sat Aug 10, 2024 6:16 am

I got a walbro pump. It's very quiet. You can hear it whirring with nothing else running, but it's a healthy sound, not the whining of the other pump.

It's about two inches longer than the OEM pump, so some fuel line trimming is necessary.

I ran it into a bucket before connecting completely. The fuel output was much stronger/higher volume.

Connected it seems to overwhelm the fuel pressure regulator a bit with pressure between 35-38 psi with the engine off. Engine running it settles down to 30-33 psi. This might be due to vacuum control on the regulator. I think it's ok. AFR doesn't seem any less as measured by a meter.

The thing is very well constructed. "Made in USA".

With the neoprene rubber sleeve it fits the OE mount perfectly, but it comes with its own brackets.