Just got a call from Gerry and he's back on the road.  turns out his 
problem was a bad fuel pump.  he was using one from a MB and it 
produced only 250 mls in 30 secs vs the spec of 500 mls in 30 
seconds.  it had been working fine previous to the long trip, of 
course.

He found one for $140 from a FLAPS which is an EXTREMELY good price.  
I priced them here and they ran between $261.44 from Big A to $207 
from Champion.  The dealer here in town gave me a mercy price of $150 
for a VW one to FedEx to him should it have come to that.

Keep on going, Ger!

-dan