Hi Volks,

This sort of thing is exactly why I question the wisdom of VW's
migration of the Vanagon fuel filter to place it BEHIND the fuel pump.

A filter before this pump would have saved it. Damaging fuel
contaminants can indeed be smaller than the outlet screen on the tank.

Happy Trails,

Greg Potts
1973/74/75/77/79 Westfakia "Bob the Tomato"
www.pottsfamily.ca/westfakia
www.busesofthecorn.com

On 18-Oct-06, at 2:11 AM, Curt Newsome wrote:

> Thanks to all who responded to my earlier post about
> my noisy fuel pump. The story is not over but I'm
> getting close.
>
> To make a long story short my fuel pump was noisy and
> eventually failed completely because it got plugged up
> with a fine rust colored silt from my just "cleaned"
> tank.  While the ruined pump is apparently my problem
> (shop taking no responsibility for this), they have
> offered to re-remove the tank and send it back to
> Seatle Radiator to be re-cleaned.
>
> I'm wondering if I should just replace the tank - I
> guess I'm just skeptical of anyone's ability to really
> clean out the old one and am pretty sick of dealing
> with this.  And i really don't want to ruin anohter
> fuel pump (this one was new in June!).
>
> The guy at Seattle Radiator seemed pretty baffled that
> a tank he had just cleaned could have had gunk in it
> and claimed that they had never had a problem before,
> but was more than willing to redo the work (more than
> I can say for my soon-to-be-former VW mechanic).  Any
> opinion on which route to take?  While it would be
> cheaper to let them re-clean, the last thing I want is
> any more trouble out of this - ever.
>
> What would you do? Any advice on backyard Seattle
> mechanics who could install a new tank cheerfully
> accepted!
>
> Thanks for your help!
>
> Curt Newsome
> '85 Westy