I've had nothing but problems with electric fuel pumps. I use a good manual pump now. I don't recall the brand. It's Japanese and I got it from Heliproz. I've had it for years and not a single trouble with it.

From your list it sounds like you've rushed through some things. Paying attention to detail seems like it takes time, but in the long run it saves a lot of time.

One thing I always do is pre-flight my planes at home. Sometimes I get back from the field and just put my planes away but there may be things that need adjustment. If I do the pre-flight in the shop then I can correct those things where all my tools and supplies are available. I'd rather work on the bench than at the field. When I get to the field I have very few problems.

I'm one of the few people I know who can fly all day and not tinker around with my planes all the time. There are a couple others, but the vast majority of guys at my field spend more time working on their planes than flying them. Plus it's that much harder because they don't have everything they need so they start jury-rigging.