Power steering pumps have arrived! New YouTube video!

Awesome! We received both power steering pumps. Here is a quick (maybe not...) video comparing the two. I'm excited to install one of them ;)

New YouTube video!

Here's a quick video unboxing of some new parts that came all the way from Dubai!

Parts obsession

I have to admit a bit of an addiction.

When there's something to search for, and it's on the internet, I get pretty obsessed.

An imported Japanese vehicle with lots of obscure parts therefore lends itself to this sort of time-consuming activity.

You see, after I won the bid, and the mechanic confirmed that yes, it did need a new power steering pump, the hunt was on!

I briefly touched on this in the previous post. It only took me a few paragraphs to explain myself, but it really took up way more of my time that I let on.

To start, I jumped on partsouq.com. This site is great, because it offers very excellent exploded diagrams of nearly the entire vehicle. Powertrain, accessories, electrical, it's all there!

This map of the entire vehicle wasn't actually specific to my RV. Rather it was for the Isuzu Fargo truck (van?) that existed before it was hacked up and converted to an RV. But majoritively all of the parts were still present and therefore accurately represented in these diagrams.

All one has to do is click through the various systems until they dig down to the part they think is needed.

In my case, I did strongly desire a power steering pump.

At first, my beginner understanding of Partsouq let me only to an exploded diagram of the pump. I spent far too long staring at this blown up assembly, trying to figure out which parts might be available and which I would want to try for a rebuild.

It took quite a while before I basically gave up on these small parts. Even though they were largely clickable and existed as real parts sometime back in the '90s, nowadays they were nowhere to be found.

I sent a few emails to other parts vendors (see my prior post) and came up empty handed.

Eventually, after digging around for some time longer, I found that the entire pump itself was represented in another exploded diagram of a broader steering system category!

If you look near the center, you'll see Item #1. That's the pump I needed!

Obviously enough, this part number turned out to be the same one that the mechanic back in Japan found I needed to order. It was also the one that would cost around $900 new!

Most power steering pumps for Isuzus of this generation run about $100. So I knew it was not financially practical to pursue this option, even though the perfectionist in me wanted to do so. Period correct Isuzu Fargos aren't a thing, so I didn't need to keep in authentic!

Knowing the actual pump part number, I pushed my Google-Fu to the limits. Glimmers of people selling this pump as a used item popped up on very foreign websites. Most of the languages were Cyrillic in one form or another. I admit to knowing zero about language, but basically many of them were Russian or near neighbors of Russia.

But lo and behold, they WERE selling the pump I needed!

So close, and yet so far.

I made numerous attempts to contact these various sellers. But their oddly complicated methods of contacting (I needed a foreign phone number) and impossible to solve Captchas (because my keyboard could hardly handle their alphabet) made it hard to reach them.

I haven't heard back yet. I figure they wouldn't want to bother shipping overseas anyway. I wouldn't, at least.

Another avenue took me to an Indian automotive forum. They seemed super techy, knew their diesels, and also spoke of the rare 4FG1 engine that my Fargo has.

But again a road block. I tried to register for their exclusive forum and was denied!

I want to try again, but possibly the same issues would come up. Who would want to ship a cheap old pump to the US from another country?

So now I think I've finally come to accept not getting an OEM pump.

I have an angle on a similar pump, and some fine folks at PlanetIsuzoo seem to assure me that if I can just mount it up proper, it will work fine. I think that's convincing enough!

And so my pump hunt comes to a close.

But I cannot rest, for there are many more parts to be had!

Congratulations!

I definitely felt a flash of panic as I read the title of the email.

"Congratulations. You are now the owner of an Isuzu Fargo."

it was the "Congratulations" that set me off. You know how you wake up and for a moment you don't remember anything from the prior day? That was very obvious in this moment.

I don't want to get too far into my own emotions (not enough time...) but it was definitely a bit of a roller coaster to bid on and win a Japanese car that was (is still...) literally in Japan. For the first time!

Alright, so upon winning the bid, the auction broker definitely moves into action quickly. There's basically no going back at this point, unless possibly you can say "hey, just relist it right away". But that costs a few hundred bucks. And I don't know why you'd want to do that unless you suddenly learned that you didn't have enough money to pay the full fare.

The auction houses require you to get that vehicle the heck out of there when you win.

Japanese campers create a bit of a dilemma. They are usually a bit too large for a car transporter (at least, those in Japan which I guess are smaller?). So they need to be driven off the lot, and driven somewhere else.

Normally that would be straight to the port, where it sits and waits for shipping.

But my camper had an issue with the power steering, plus any other unknown issues that the initial inspection failed to show.

So the best course of action was to have it sent to a mechanic. My auction broker uses a specific mechanic that is down by the port of Yokohama. This makes sense because that port is typically where many vehicles are sent from when destined for the USA.

I had good faith in their mechanic and so I was on board to have it moved down there.

But oh...how far did it have to travel?

1,200 dang kilometers.

In the heat of it all, I failed to really consider how far away this was. My broker made it clear, but I figured the low bid I was planning to put in at the time would negate that transport distance.

I suppose it did. The fee to move it was pretty reasonable. Whoever did the driving...not of the transport truck...but of the camper itself, got a little road trip in. Granted, I heard that a ferry was also involved, but was it just between the two major islands?

And the fee and who was driving it wasn't really part of my concern, so much as the genuine possibility that it might break down during said drive. Or blow up or otherwise destroy itself.

It took a few days (or maybe it was a week?) but eventually I got word that the vehicle had shown up at the port mechanic!

This was great, because finally I could get some piece of mind about the condition of the vehicle. It was also my chance to get any maintenance done at the hands of a skilled mechanic who knew how to work on these vehicles.

And not only that, but the mechanic also took a ton of photos for me. I don't know if this was part of the deal, but I was very happy to receive them!

The photos were much higher resolution than the prior inspection photos, and worlds above the auction listing photos. Whomever your auction broker is, I would recommend trying to nab some better photos before the vehicle makes its way onto the ship. It could also help you identify any issues ahead of time (since you'll be waiting at least a month).

My main request to the port mechanic was having the power steering pump evaluated. Granted, I didn't want a bunch of tinkering to occur. I really just wanted to source a new pump and have it replaced, if the cost was reasonable.

Well, it turned out to be what I'm sure is reasonable, but still quite expensive. I know the work would have been stellar, but I was trying to keep costs low. I bought this camper for cheap, on purpose!

However, while it was still in the hands of the mechanic I did opt to have him look for a replacement pump. Possibly he could order it and just pack it with the camper when it shipped, or ship it to me. I think it's actually frowned upon to load a vehicle up with spare parts and then export it. Customs doesn't like that ;)

But I wouldn't get a chance to do that either! Apparently, the engine in this vehicle, an Isuzu 2.4 liter 4FG1, carries some very obsolete parts. At least the power steering pump is nowhere to be found. I won't get into my hours and hours of searching, but suffice to say neither me, the mechanic, or my broker could get an angle on a readily available pump.

There are a lot of sites out there for Japanese vehicle parts. My search primarily entailed the following sites:

www.partsouq.com (great diagrams, just put in your VIN)
www.amayama.com (good prices)
www.megazip.net (a good backup)

And yet, none of them carried the pump!

The only option was to order an OEM pump from somewhere (Isuzu?) that seemingly had to fire up their forge tooling again and cast a brand new one. The cost of that was nearly $1000. I even managed to find a few suppliers myself who could give me a quote, and the price was effectively the same. Plus, the lead time was 2 months!

Ultimately I had to come to terms with not getting an OEM pump (though I honestly haven't at the time of writing this...).

From my hours of research, it seems like any near equivalent pump will do, and it's just a matter of creating a proper bracket to attach it in the right place. Easier said that done I figure. But I won't know until I try to sort that out.

After a few days at the mechanic, and an otherwise clean bill of health awarded, I gave the okay to move the Fargo to the actual port. This is where the waiting game would begin!