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Hopefully it was just a minor hiccup for Marck at East Coast Reatta as Rock Auto no longer shows a listing for the rear struts. That almost has to be the shortest listing and fastest sellout of an item in their history. I checked both Ebay and Amazon and neither one ordered any so it must of been just Rock Auto that got the chance to buy them. Interesting to me that Rock Auto didn't list them as a "Factory Closeout" as they usually do. I wonder how many they received. Marck claims he ordered "100 pairs" so that would be 200. I'll bet the overrun was less then 50 to cover any damage in shipment or other shrinkage factors. At any rate they are gone, and I'm quite sure we will never see them again. So Marck should still be able to sell his inventory and Alchemist hopefully be able to liquidate what he has as well. However my order shows it was complete and has been shipped, due to arrive tomorrow...

It will be interesting to see how things play out between ECRP and Monroe. Wondering if the Terms and Conditions of the contract between them had any exclusivity called out. If I was Monroe, and I am going to bring a tool out of storage or make a new one, I am going to bang out as many as possible (within financial reason) once I have things setup to run. I hope that all parties (ECRP and Monroe)make things right. Marck and ROJ have done great things to keep these wonderful cars on the road!

I think this caught Marck by surprise to. He might stand to lose a lot both with people wanting to back out who pre-ordered and with holding the bag with some expensive struts he can't sell. I hope Monroe will make it right with him.

I'll admit, I had the same thought but much like you, I wanted everyone to have a chance much like you and I. My gut feeling is Monroe made approx. 24 extra units in case of defects in the Marck order. Once they had his order fulfilled, they released the "spares" to RA and that's what us lucky owners scooped up.

I'll confess that after I placed my order for two struts I was tempted to order 20. I figured if Marck was getting $499.00 a pair for factory originals and Alchemist What he was getting for his fabricated ones, I could get $175.00 each. But I decided to just let it go just getting my 2 and letting the others on the forum know and ordering what they needed. And to the forum's credit they pretty much just ordered what they needed for themselves with no thoughts of resale.

Agree the pump is likely air locked. Make sure the brakes have been pumped down with the pedal which should be rock hard. I have used this procedure;. I unscrew the steel line that comes out of the pump near the accumulator, move the line out of the way of the hole and apply vacuum with a catch can directly to the opening with the pump running. It should prime in a short time. Turn off the key. Once bled, reconnect the line and it should pressurize and the pump will stop. Proceed with bleeding the brakes as instructed.

Since all the fluid was drained out of the brake lines and the calipers the fluid probably has drained out of the pump to. The pumps on the TEVES system aren't designed to push air out to prime the pump with fluid. I would connect a hand vacuum like a Mityvac to the line coming out of the pump and suck the air out of the pump while sucking fluid into the pump from the reservoir. Then connect the hand vacuum pump to the bleeder valve and try to suck air out of the calipers and brake lines while holding the brake pedal down WITHOUT turning the key on and running the pump. Once you get all the air out you can that way, follow the how-to guide here on ROJ for bleeding the rear brakes with the pump running..

If your pump runs continuously and doesn’t stop (should take about 1.5 minutes to fully pressure after sitting overnight) then it’s the accumulator. If that’s the case, I highly recommend not driving it until the accumulator is replaced. Driving it with the pump continuously running drastically shortens the lifespan of the already old pump, and will cause premature failure. That’s an even harder and more expensive part to get over the accumulator.

DAVES89, all is well, I have recovered my cost (plus a little beer money) and have one set left, sitting on the shelf for when they are no longer available again and someone needs a set. FYI, on the pair of Riviera 71801's that I bought... I removed the air bladder and upper case, so now I have my set of replacements for whenever the time comes. They are exactly the same as the 71966 once the added air spring items are out of the way. The boots attach perfectly and everything.

In the final analysis I wished I would have waited until everyone had a chance to turn their inventory over. It all started with an e mail from Rock Auto telling me that inventory on the strut MOUNTS I was interested in were still out of stock and would I be interested in staying on their list of people to contact when inventory was in. So on a flyer I checked the inventory on struts and was surprised to see they were there. I feel the worst for Marck at East Coast Reattas as I believe that Monroe allowed Rock Auto to get inventory before he did. I hope that his inventory arrives and he gets his orders shipped before too much damage is done to him and his business. He is the one that took on a big risk and could be hurt terribly by this happening.