38 mile journey

Tuesday we never made to the campground. 38 miles down the road the fuel pump failed . . . again. I had been fine since July so I thought that problem was in the past.

We pulled off to the side of the highway. Fortunately, we were towing a boat and qualified for assistance from Boat US. I've always had great service from them. This time was no exception. The tow truck loaded up the van and hitched up the boat trailer. I had them bring us back to my dad's place.

Once back at my dad's I had the tow truck drop the van where there were fewer fire ants. I spread a tarp, crawled under the van and removed the fuel pump.

Wednesday morning I called a local Ford garage. They said they could have a replacement pump by 1:30 but it was going to be over $600. My garage back home confirmed that the pump was still on warranty and faxed the info to the Ford garage in FL. That worked out really well and I was able replace the pump before dark.

My lovely wife and I are heading down south once more. We couldn't get all our campground fees refunded, but my wife got a good chunk of it back. Even better, we are actually going camping again.

Something will have to be done about the van always blowing fuel pumps. I lay awake in bed thinking over our vehicle options. It ran for many many miles without destroying fuel pumps. The only thing that's different is that my main veggie supplier switched to a heavier hydrogenated oil. Maybe that's causing just enough stress to drastically reduce the life of the pumps.

Maybe it's time to drop my supplier and limit the van to vacation and tow vehicle duty instead of being a daily driver. My lovely wife's car died and that gives us the opportunity to replace it with something else -or maybe just get a bigger boat and spend our winters on that.

-Sixbears