Former VWDieselParts.com Forum

Aaaarrrgh!

Good point Fatmobile. I'm about to put her away for the winter. I'll have a good look at that shaft when I pull the IP to reseal the cold-start lever. And I just did the pump head seal last fall "in-situ." Great how-to libbybapa.
But will the leaks never end?

The shaft turned out to be fine. I had the pump resealed by Giles and everything else fell into place. I'm looking toward putting a 1.9 head on the block next.

...

Well it's been a while and Westy and I have been through many adventures and this summer all the pieces of my "mysterious missing" fell into place.

The problem was: I would start the van, warm it up and drive off. Randomly, the van would misfire and stall, always almost immediately. Then when I engaged the starter, it would spin freely, leading me to think the lifters weren't pressurizing; hence the oil pump relief valve.
Well that midnight breakdown a few years ago alerted me to the loose pulley on the intermediate shaft, wobbling around and upsetting the timing. That explains the random missing.
But the oil pressure issue was still randomly occurring. This past spring I connected an oil pressure gauge. But before I could get any useful readings, a starter brushed pulled loose inside the and jammed it all up. I cleaned it all and with some spare brush holders etc., put it back together. It would just spin merrily in place. The pinion wouldn't engage the flywheel I thought. Not until I had replaced the solenoid did I learn about the bendix.
The bendix was slipping.
So it was the combination of the loose pulley stalling the engine then the bendix not letting it start.

The combination'll always getcha.