My current Service Manual covers spot repairs, not complete rebuilding. I believe these spot repairs were ok years ago, but for most of these units that have been around since 1950 (they are almost 60 years old, they should be completely taken apart and rebuilt.
One good sign that your unit needs rebuilding is to take apart the strainer assembly. That is the three cornered thing in the lower left corner, it has a tube going to it. Pull it out, if there is no rust, or the strainer is still there, just blow it out good and put on new gasket on it. If the strainer has rusted away, or if the chamber is filled with rust your unit needs to be rebuilt. This rust has to go somewhere, the first place is the check valve. Most of the check valves we remove are rusted in and will not move, also rust goes up these tubes and into the main valve, many times cloging up the main valve.
I have also yet to find one that did not have a hole in the diaphragm. If you have to replace the diaphragm you might as well do a complete rebuild because you have to remove all the parts to get to the diaphragm, so if they are just laying there, why not rebuild them.
If you were replacing a wheel bearing on a car, wouldn't you check out the condition of the brakes while you are there? Same thing.
As for the chrome. If the chrome has pits in it, no one can get these pits out, I've tried. The replaters grind them down and down trying to get out the pits, and they still can't get them out of the black lines on the upper "Emblem" and lower "Scuff" plates. And the other thing is that the platers cannot grind then replate, then rechrome, then polish a piece chrome for what I sell it for. Actually the chrome we sell is better than the original industrial chrome used on the old units, ours is much thicker and much shinner.
We have the largest stock of ECO parts on hand. You could build a unit from scratch just from using the parts we have on hand. We generally get the parts out the day we receive payemnt or at the most the next day. I have also been rebuilding these ECOs since around 1985, so we can answer any question you might have if you are trying to do it yourself. If you don't want to do it yourself, we can rebuild the unit for around $135 including parts for normal rebuilds. And we guarantee them.
About two years ago I rewrote the Service Manual somewhat. I pulled out the stuff that no longer applied. Since there has been about 5 manuals printed since 1947, I took the best of each one so my manual would cover all the ECOs. ECOs seervice manuals offered you by others are only photocopies of one of the five old manuals. My revised manual covers all five.
BTW we also have a 100% feedback rating on Ebay in our ECO Stores. Our shipping is withing pennies of the actual cost, we don't use a % figure to determine shipping and we don't pad the shipping. We also ship international including Canada. My heavier items go FedEx because both of my daughters work for Fedex.
While some people call me a gas pump guru, I actually know more about ECOs and can answer the ECO questions much better than the Gas Pump Questions. Both Cindy and I can be reached at 314-427-3943. We don't sell gas pump parts or other new stuff, we found our nitch and are trying to be the best at it as possible.
Please feel free to check out our website:
www.petrolianacollectible.com the largest website devoted to this hobby (over 5000 images).
Jack Sim