In my 14 years of I4/I5 VW motor experience I have seen many a pump lose
it's prime.  This was observed when I pulled the distributer and put a drill
on the oil pump drive.  After much turning, no oil pressure.
The solution is to pull the pressure sender in the oil filter housing and
pour oil down the hole.  This will drain down to the discharge side of the
oil pump and prime it.
I think most people don't realize their oil pump has lost prime because
higher rpm's(engine running) will self prime the pump.  Question is, how
much damage is done before the pump primes?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com]On Behalf
> Of Rachel Cogent
> Sent: Monday, July 30, 2001 7:16 PM
> To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
> Subject: Re: '82 diesel resurrection death?
>
>
> Entity Daniel Snow spoke thus:
> > Dumb me.
> Relax, you did NOT shred you new motor by failing to prime the
> oil pump. It
> was already shredded. In all my years of dealing with this engine in
> Rabbits, Quantums and Jettas I have never heard of an engine
> losing its "oil
> pump prime", not even after 6 years of unuse.
> No doubt you do have no oil pressure and need bearings and a crank
> grinddown. If you are lucky you can get by with the rings you
> have and save
> hundreds of $s. You need to disassemble the beast incrementally to size up
> the situation, but if you are not willing to go all the way if
> need be don't
> even start because you will end up with junk pieces.
>
> I do however lust for your factory sunroof.
>
>                 Rachel
>