Brewed my 67th beer with my grainfather this weekend. All original equipment (except for the controller upgrade that came out a couple of years ago and two new rubber silicon hoses for the wort chiller). Extremely happy with this. Never used the safety spring and ball in the pump tube, and always ran through copious amounts of PBW during clean up. On clean up, I also use an air compressor to clear out the pump tube line and wort chiller lines. I also use a steel hop spider to minimize trub going through the pump.