Depending on what you want your pump for, you can always make a sacrifice out of the look rather than the pocket. I spent under $50 on my Gilbarco 96C (still fabbing up a door) by using spray paint. This sounds like a horrid alternative, and perhaps hick-like. But if you saw the pump, you wouldn't guess that it is spray paint. Granted, it's no show pump. I want it for me, in my garage. It's not a show piece. It's mine. But the Valspar paint I got at Farm & Fleet looks really decent.
As was brought up in the paint post, the one problem with spray paint is that you don't get much thickness out of it. Dings and dents show up a little more, but it's not $20 a pint.
