I had driven the BobD 367 miles down from Atlanta with not so much as a screwdriver. And it was rainy. And I had supreme trust in that car.
So, on my way down to the Law Firm and a quick stop scheduled for AutoZone thereafter, do you think I was going to load up with tools? or a cell phone? Pshaw, of course not.
Honestly, no air-cooled Volkswagen of mine has ever
stranded me ever never since I was eighteen years-old, nope. The only air-cooled Volkswagen that ever did strand me and my poor hapless customer was rallybug in Salt Lake City in 2013 (time flies!)
https://www.itinerant-air-cooled.com/vi ... 23#p201296
Pulled up to the traffic light 2.6 miles from the house. Idiot lights on! Utilized the remaining 2 mph to blow through the red and start looking for a pull over spot. The downhill was a luxury and gave me the second driveway, a U-Haul lot. Pulled next to a box truck and dang it, the lousiest part of the asphalt and dirt and oil and sand. "BobD", I sez, "I was just thinking of selling you, I didn't say I was GOING TO."
No tools, not good. No cell phone, not good. Schedule jam #3 in a series, I had no time for this sh*t. Having just spent a phone day helping exoticdvm extricate himself from a no-start, I used exactly the same diagnostic track. Wiper movement with ignition on did not yield a pump sound. Ripped the wires off a tank-style fuel pump just sitting there on the ground next to the garage door, honest, it was just sitting there and I needed a jumper wire. I couldn't even cut it with anything. What was I going to use, my keys? Found a mirror bracket on one of the trucks and jammed the wire between the bracket and body, and "spliced" the wire ends. Pulled left side double relay plug and stuck my new jumper wire between 88Y and whatever it is for the pump (look it up in double-relay article! you got a computer or a PHONE). Could not hear anything over the traffic and leaf blowers and drones overhead, but I saw sparking at my jumper wire. OK. Pump is suspect. Locked the car. Walked home. Gloried in the modest propulsion system of two legs. Looked at everybody's houses. Thirty minutes in, I am bored with just walking while all of these cars keep whizzing by. Man, I have done this commute many many many times, it is a stretch while hoofing it. I plan my solutions, A and B:
A) if my spare fuel pump spins over at the house, I drive NaranjaToolsBazaar down to install the new pump, drive the BobD home, walk back to get NaranjaWesty.
B) if my spare pump is frozen, I bring down NaranjaWesty, take the pump out of NaranjaWesty and stick it in the BobD after I pull its dead pump, drive the BobD back to the house (and make sure to bring tools), take the NaranjaWesty pump out of the BobD and bring it back and install it in NaranjaWesty and drive it home.
Now seriously, if you think I would go through all of that rigamorale in Plan B . . . . . . . . you'd be right.
NaranjaWesty's pump is my loyal loyal friend after eating a quarry's worth of graveled varnish all across the country. It started the BobD right up and got us home. And it fit back in NaranjaWesty with nary a problem.
I was not ready to call BobD's pump dead. Are you kidding? It looks brand-new under there with original cosmoline wax still on it, fresh beautiful boot-protected spade terminals, why did it die? The suddenness of the failure made me think that the rotor got stalled out by a piece of junk. What junk, you ask? I know, I asked the same exact question. We ALL know that the BobD fuel tank is immaculate inside.
Well, I could hear the filter element inside the fuel filter r-a-t-t-l-i-n-g. Rattling. See the note on the fuel pump in Sharpie Marker? Last replaced at 103,900 miles:
You know that every time the pump would turn on it would suck that rattling filter bang into the inside of the filter housing. Time and time again.
Something must have shredded off. See that little mouse poo thing? I think that was the sort of contaminant that stalled out the pump. This filter was not one of our usual MadeInIsrael filters, it was a "Hastings" and I do not trust them.
I ran test wires from the pump to NaranjaWesty's battery and reversed polarity a couple of times. It was a touching tender joyful moment when that beautiful fuel pump coughed and vomited fuel all over NaranjaWesty's battery like a dead drowning victim sputtering back to life. I shouldn't even be here typing . . . but there was no explosion because I had sprayed WD-40 up both ends of the BobD fuel pump and shaken it and tapped it before test-powering it up. Reinstalled BobD fuel pump in BobD and all is well.
Drove NaranjaWesty 376 miles from Pensacola to Jacksonville at no less than 65 mph after the above. Just got here an hour ago. Filthy Dub appointment tomorrow morning.
Colin