Listees,

I have a problem here with a '85 Vanagon I picked up a few months ago, that
was running extremely well until about 3 days ago. The vehicle has 105K on
it, about 4 month old heads, 4-speed, had great compression, didnt use any
oil, ran cool, and I used it as a daily driver. I was driving down the
freeway one evening, van ran smooth as silk, doing about 70, when all of a
sudden the oil light came on! I instantly threw in the clutch and killed the
engine, coasted off the exit and pulled into a gas station parking lot to
assess the damage. Pulled the dipstick, nice and clean oil all upto the mark.
No oil leaks, underside of the engine nice and dry............ Turned the
key, thinking it was a bad sender, and the engine fired up instantly,
however, horribly loud clacking from the lifters, and the oil light stayed
on.............. Towed it back,  ran a pressure test on it, zero, so I pulled
off the pressure relief valve, it fell out smoothly, and the spring was nice
and strong, checked again, same thing. So I pulled off the oil pump, put in a
brand new one, fired it up, same horrible clatter, so I checked the pressure
again, ZERO!!!!!!!! What the ****??????? BTW, I use all OEM oil filters, so
that's not a problem................Any ideas or suggestions would be highly
appreciated, as this was a great running van, till now, and it's got me
puzzled.  I sure dont want to tear the engine apart unless I absolutely have
to.

TIA,

Vic Ahmed