Ive been eyeing up the fuel screen, just that one part is coming up over $100. ouch !
Im considering making my own from some brass gasoline screen. thought I might sort of solder a tube onto that existing nut . Maybe I can just knock the plastic parts off and use an off the shelf in line filter as it exits the tank instead. my thinking is that whether the screen is in the tank or after the tank won't make a difference to the performance and maybe if It's outside I could see if it gets all dirty. maybe there is some danger in having a filter there where it might get hit by something like road debris.

maybe the check valve was just not sealing and thus losing it's back pressure so that pressure had to re-build upon each startup. I'm thinking you likely solved it by replacing the pump, but the actual failure point was the check valve.

changing out the pump was probably smart just for reliability as well. nice to hear of a happy ending to the issue. one of the common parts scources has a note on their website the average pump life is about 7 years, I guess that's what the cheapo ones are expected to live for. the Bosche ones commonly go 20 years and are still OEM but there also seeems ot be more than one bosche pump that can work.