The fluid pump on my VPI 17 RCM recently made this loud POP! through the speakers and the croaked.
Crud, sez me, so I pulled the bottom off and that was the problem: crud.
I pulled the pump off and hit the armature with WD40 until I could spin it with a pair of vice grips and then I disassembled it, hit the inside with WD40 and scraped the crud loose, coated the moving portions with dielectric grease, reassembled the plot and the pump, she now works.
So, if you have one of these machines, it might not be a bad idea to pull the pump out and give it a good cleaning every once in a while.
You might also want to paint the area where the fluid tank mounts and then hit it with silicone seal to keep the exposed particle board from rotting away on you.
