Foretravel Owners' Forum For owners and Fans of Foretravel Motorcoaches September 11, 2025 ...

I wonder why a tapered shaft was necessary?

The taper and keyway locates a hub for the pulley to mount, where as a straight shaft would not fix the location of the pulley.

Knowing somewhat how Foretravel did things,think they used whatever was availible,your point taken craneman but look at all the truck and car pulleys that are pressed on a straight shaft.

I wonder why a tapered shaft was necessary?  My coach isn't close now so can't look. 

I cannot emphasize enough......the next person that has a failure on a 41188....all your possible wealth will not buy you a fix.....THERE ARE NO PUMPS OR PARTS,....YET, but there might be if the demand is there. QCC is working toward a resolution, but its been made pretty clear that will probably be a limited run resolution.

The straight or tapered is a non issue because failure was on the thick end, not in the tapered area. The keyway IMO localized stress contributing to failure point. Regardless if semi reasonable priced  I like others will purchase a replacement pump to carry and probably never use ( ISM direct drive mount) but will help collectively promote a demand for at least another run of these pumps. It would be a wonderful time for them to incorporate a resolution to prevent this from happening in the future on the new pump line, but that may be a whole new bag worms also who knows

Hopefully QCC comes through.  In the mean time, no need to stress quite so much.  As I mentioned back on page 4, shafts can be made if it comes to that. 

 I might add, 3 of the hydraulic shops refused to do rebuilds and warrant such, EVEN though I was getting the shafts direct from QCC...I was never going to ask someone to do what I can do myself, but I did ask....why would they not warranty you might ask? all 3 said the same thing, they refused to warranty any item associated with a vehicular safety/Steering system, and really did not even want to to do the rebuild at this level..

If vibration is any part of the shaft failure then the harmonic balancers deserve a looksee,there are posts from years ago about
failures and replacing,there are sites with pictures to compare yours to,we have the 8.3 12 valve and replaced ours years ago,
made a slight difference and was easy to do yourself.

Unless you personally are willing to step and up and manufacture those shafts, good luck finding anyone that will. And if you do, you surely would have to lie about the application to get it done.

In the meantime, I wanted to add something about the "green" belt and the jumping tensioner. Mine does that from time to time for the last 8 years, but it only happens during winter months when the temperature goes below 45-50 degrees. So, I use belt conditioner, and that solves the bouncing issue when it's cold outside. I have been using that heavy-duty "green" belt for 8 years now (change the belt about every 5-6K miles).

I mentioned this to Keith Risch; he was curious to find out if a slightly shorter belt could help. However, since belt conditioner solves the bouncing issue, I am thinking a softer belt may be better to use.
Al

Mike,
Did you ever find a new (not overhauled) pump?
Sometimes o/h parts are just someone else's problem.

[quote author=mkc1962 link=msg=479219 Unless you personally are willing to step and up and manufacture those shafts, good luck finding anyone that will. And if you do, you surely would have to lie about the application to get it done.

Will QCC have to lie about what the shafts are for when they seek bids from machine shops to make them?  My nephew mentioned that he remembers bidding quite a few jobs like this from QCC but only "winning" 1 or 2 because some other company underbid them. 
Just think of the different parts involved in the hydraulic/steering system mentioned in this thread.  If the manufacturer of every piece of the puzzle had to guarantee that it would never fail, nothing would get made.
Again, I applaud your efforts and hope that QCC offers the pumps again.  Just saying that if they don't, there are other options.

As I asked much earlier in this thread, has anyone been able to get the pump specs from Foretravel.

Hydraulic pumps are not rocket science.  Knowing flow and PSI at given RPM (have to look at pump pulley diameter vs crank pulley diameter when discussing pump RPM) could lead to a current replacement.

Many years ago, I went through this exact kind of issue.  We were in Fort Davis State Park one cold December (snow on the ground) and the hydraulic pump "puked" several gallons of fluid on start up.  A call to Foretravel revealed that our hydraulic pump was no longer available. BAD NEWS!

But, they did have a replacement "new style" pump, but it required a new pressure regulator to bring PSI into OE specs.  Oh, and new hoses and hose routing.  In Fort Davis, TX-- not so much.

The bad news, it was really cold (in the 20's), so no fun working under the coach.  The good news is that by driving slowly and stopping to let the engine cool (never got over 205 degree) F and going substantially downhill we got to  Alpine TX. Small, friendly town.  Found a nursery (closed for the winter) a block from a big NAPA store who made a lot of hydraulic hoses for the ranchers in the area.  Measured the many hoses needed and their hose guy came over to see what fittings/ends were needed on each.  A day later we were back on the road.

I have to believe there are alternative pumps that would meet the OE specs, but will likely require interest from Foretravel Corp in assisting owners of older coaches. That has not necessarily proven true in the past.  Hopefully it will now.

No question, this is a distant "Plan B" vs all the hard work being spearheaded by Mike in getting production back on the OE pump.