Since i had my oil pump failure, i finally got the pump taken apart, and it's very interesting...

this pump is cast steel, all the other ones are aluminum.

the roll pin didn't shear, it almost did...

pump looks like it ran dry

the gear in the pump fused to the top of the pump, that's what killed the cam, but oddly it's turning now, and it turns very hard, the shaft is very tight, no play at all...

the top of the pump gear turned blue from heat.

the pump body is cast from a very sloppy cast, the oil passage to lube the shaft has cast iron junk around the port.

i need some pics here. it's crazy...

this happned less than 100 miles after switching from castrol to royal purple too... any connection?

Now we have to dismantle NEW parts to inspect them to make sure they were built properly... Sigh

Any pictures of your damaged oil pump??? Is that a factory oil unit???

no pics yet, not a factory pump.
it's very ugly looking.

oil pumps might be worth getting from the dealer...

I have new original oil pumps from a14 crate motors...... oops, just noticed your is a a15, sorry

are they any different?

All A series oil pumps are interchangeable.
The iron pump, as you rightly assert. is a 'replacemet' type, but they are not inherently inferior. What caused your failure? I don't know, but I look forward to seeing some pictures.

i've been wondering, is this why cold starts were so hard even with a under drive starter... first start of the day was always unusually hard but then once warm it was easy.

it's very weird how the gear has 0 clearance at the top and bottom of the pump. Honestly i can't remember if the pump felt excessively tight when i got it, i'd tend to say it was harder to turn than the current 'good' spare pump.

the casting for the pump is really messy, but only on the inside where it matters. the outside looks fine.

I've always used aftermarket parts and never had anything this odd happen before.

my first question is, is there some sort of magic way that the gear inside the pump got larger? if not, then the shaft and gear were too tight in the first place, that being the case, the 'play' there should have been would be taken up by pressing the gear right against the top of the pump housing, which it must have been doing for the gear top to be blue from heat.

The oil didn't "fail" per se, the gear top got so hot from having too little clearance, did I just get lucky and it died, or did switching to a radically different oil cause a failure that was coming? this oil thing worries me... was switching oils a fluke?

***the gear did seize to the top of the pump, the part the gear rotates in was scuffed, but not blue or seized.***

that seems interesting, also, the galley that feeds oil to the pump shaft was already tiny, but this casting has all kinds of cast in crap around the little inlet, the metal debris from the pump gear rubbing the bottom of the pump chamber would likely go straight to the shaft bearing...

so how's that for weird, the gear seized, inside the pump to the top, that broke the cam gear, which should have sheared the roll pin, but didn't and even taken apart the pump is hard to turn, so the lack of clearance wasn't the only problem with the pump, because if it were just clearance it would turn easily once apart, but something else is wrong too...

pics:
big pics - ugly damage...

Having had a look at your pics, here follows my not so pro opinion.

That looks like a pretty kak oil pump...kak means sh!t, but worse...

No seriously, the last pic shows some rust on the mating surface, and it might be that some of this got into the pump. The shaft might also be rusted where it goes through the housing, which is causing the tough turning.

Maybe this pump simply didn't get enough lube/wax when it was assembled, and rusted while in transit or on the shelf???

on the mating surface it's part of the gasket - yes it a very poor pump.

all the color on the metal is from heat.