Thread: 300 tdi vacuum pump

Hi Dragon2000,
If you haven't had the engine apart and by that I mean the front of the engine where you disturb the oil pump from my experience it is unlikely that the oil pump will suddenly stop working due to an air lock unless you actually ran out of oil.
Based on what you've told me now I would be heading for a mechanic who knows what to look for. It is very hard to diagnose things like this without seeing what you are dealing with.
As for breaking the vacuum pump, gee whizzer.......... So by what you have written it sounds like you've had the sump off to clean all the debris out. Has the engine had oil pressure since the sump has been back on? It sounds like it has. I'm assuming here you were driving home after removing the sump and putting new oil in, is that right?
I'm also assuming you cleaned the sump strainer as part of the sump removal excersise.
How did the vacuum pump break to a point that "chunks ended up in the sump", do yu know why the vacuum pump broke? This sounds like a pretty radical failure, and to me this would be an exception rather than something you would regard as a "normal" failure mechanism.

Have you tried a new oil pressure sender ?

Hi loanrangie,
I don't think the Dragon has got any oil circulating by all accounts............. understand where you are coming from, this jobbie sounds a little bit terminal unfortunately, I'll be interested to see what the outcome is.