ok if you all seen my post a few months ago i was trying to get the approval to have the Military pay for my schooling and materials to get my license and certs for pump rebuilding through bosch. I was approved for the funding and i enrolled in the class to for the pumps. Well we were told i was going to head back over to the great big sand box over seas again so i disenrolled from the class about a month ago. Well 2 weeks ago i called up to see if there was some kind of material i can get that i can study before taking the classes and stuff and today in the mail i get 7 books from bosch going over nearly it all including a catalog for parts and prices book. Well i called them up to see what i was required to do with this materials and they told me that it was everything i get for the class since they have the money from the military prepaying for the class before they decided to send it to me. Well i started to look over it and for the life of me i cant find where these companys out there get with there prices so dang high?.... the VP-44 pump says 6 1/2 hour rebuild time and there are 4 kits avialable for rebuild.

Classic Rebuild Kit $68.00
Teflon O-Ring Rebuild Kit $138.00
Improved Electronics Rebuild Kit $138.00
Improved Elecetonics/Teflon O-Ring Rebuild Kit $170.00

I was looking over it all and i understand that i would have to purchase some of these pretty pricey calibration equipment but dang.... people are rebuilding these units and selling them for 800.00+ profit over parts and labor... wow didnt relize the market scams us that bad. Im going to try to get into the next class that starts whenever i get an email back on the date since the deployment for me was kanked. I am going to try to get into rebuilding these and purchasing some of the equipment to possably sell for a lower profit margin for members on this site. I have access to some of the equipment needed to calibrate the pumps at work but still need a few other things. i will try to keep a update on the progress on the pumps. There seems to be 5 different models of the VP-44 pump which dont really make a difference after they are rebuild but the 5 different vp-44 pumps are just different times in years they were modified by the factory before release in trucks.

 

Firstly you have to a be Bosch distributor to get the parts. You cant just buy this stuff. Secondly, you will be spending over 250,000 bucks to get started in tooling and the test equipment. Bosch does a regular inspection of your facility and you are mandated to use their tooling and if you dont have it on site when they come to inspect, you can lose the ditributorship. At 800 bucks a pump, the markup is not as bad as you think when you have to pay for and be a authorized distributor for Bosch.

I suspect a new company just getting started would need over 300,000 in tooling. Running a business is not cheap, if you do it right.

Bosch is the company making all the money throughout the world in Diesel inejction. They control everything very tight.

Don~

 

He wants to be like you Don and work out of his garage ..

 

Reminds me of the following story.

For background info:

And the relevent story......

 

If the amount was truely a bunch of profit then someone out there would be doing them cheaper, somebody would be low balling.

About 7 years ago I had my VE rebuilt on my 93, I took it off, had them rebuild it and then put it back on myself. It cost me $500, figuring for inflation it would probably be $750 now and doesn't require the same semi scarce test stand that the VP's use.

 

Most of the rebuilds also include new a new pump housing, which is not included in your parts list. There is more than gaskets, seals, and electronics which goes into a rebuild.

 

dont get me wrong i have yet to learn the full indept of it all yet. ive not yet taken the class. But this is one thing i asked before i even signed up because we have so much equipment on base that im able to use. If i was authorized to use non owned equipment and they said yes as long as it was within specs of calibration. which the government always keeps within specs. So i know im goon on that one. The whole thing about buying parts and stuff yeah i know that already. but from what it says in the book to do the rebuild on these i have the access to most of the equipment but there is about 70k in equipment i dont have and ive already spoke to the local diesel shop which has access to most of what i didnt have on base if i was to contract under them to do rebuilds. since they have noone that is able to rebuild the vp-44 inshop. they mainly deal with the BIG RIG pumps and such.

 

I admire your tenasity about rebuilding these pumps. I wish you all the luck in the world. It is admirable that you want to do a good job for less. But every time you rebuild one for less than market you are taking money out of your childrens mouths. If the market is $1,000 each do it for $995.

The road to (a very hot place) is paved with good intentions.

Profit is not a four letter word.

Do you think Bill Gates would sell his software for less than the market will bare?

Does Warren Buffit insure cars (Geico, no relation) for less than he can? The 15% you save is what the sales man would get. There is no salesman.

Even if you could buy a shop for $200K your ROI (return on investment) must be reasonable and PROFITABLE or you cannot get financing.

I know we have had this conversation before, and I really don't want to rain on your parade. I really don't. But I am as serious as I can be when I say I can list 100's of business's that go belly up because they did not charge what their producuct or service was worth.

It's not the guy that turns wrenches that makes the money in this world, it's the bean counters.

Good luck and charge what you are WORTH!

 

Hey Storx, is it true that you can replace the electronics without recalibrating the pump? Maybe you could hook us up with the electronics packages when the po216 shows up?

 

im not exactly trying to undercut the little man... as i stated above i said members of this site. When i have been in a hard spot sometimes with a technical problem or question people have allways took there time to help me out or show me in the right direction on this site. I am just trying to return the favor. Yes/No the electronics can be swapped out without calibration. The newer style pumps are already calibrated to the specs of the electronics in there catalog so you can skip this step. But this is only on particular models. remember there are 5 different models and they are not year dependent either. When i read over the section on the new improved electronics they explain how they redesigned the circuit to pull less ampage and such to have the entire board run cooler and cleaner. I have not yet studyed it all but as i can tell from just briefly going over it all there is not much to it.

Also the earlier statement. I didnt relize they keep the pump parts on a different section in the catalog and for the piston replacement kit it was only 8.00 so it stilll not that bad of a deal just replacing the piston even if if within tolerence. But yeah i am thinking if they keep the same schedule as last year the next class starts in March and i got an email back from the owner last night from the local diesel shop and he said he would pay me per unit if i wanted to rebuild pumps for him part time. We havent worked out how much money will be per unit, per type of pump but we will get to it soon.

 

If I ever need a pump it is good to know where to get one as I LIKE to save money. Good luck Jimk

 

Having to spend your money twice does not equal saving money .

 

what you mean by that?>

 

He has a 12v. Not a lot of pump failures for thise guys.

 

well beleave it or not the VP-44 pumps are very reliable if they are BUILT RIGHT and to the CORRECT tolerences...... I always wander how i was blessed to have over 200K on my stock vp-44 pump with it still going strong but when i looked up in the book mine ended up being one of the ones in the batch with upgraded parts so i guess i just got lucky. in the book it explains that back when the trucks were sold with the vp pumps that if you bought mods like towing packages and aftermarket rear end/trans. upgrades from the factory that they upgraded the pump to the heavier duty pump. Im not sure how true this is but it says SOME factory cycles did it. Also i was talking to the pump rebuilder at the local diesel shop and he said they were people in the tractor pulling market that were having the pumps rebuilt my machine shops with custom internals like higher strength forged pump pistons and such.. im not sure of the extense of this but to me it sounds like a custom hot rod style pump. but either way im looking forward to helping people out in the future.