Got pump No3 in the post from Pleiades yesterday. The previous 2 in this long-running saga were in varying stages of knackerdom but I've been running on their second one in the Athena because I haven't had time to do yet another swapout (nice people keep breaking their silly computers
£££££ 
). The second pump's 'only' problems were the seriously twitchy-and-heavy steering at low engine speeds and the bloody rattling noise the thing made all the time. I could live with that short-term.Now, just to add a little fizz to my already complicated life, during the last few weeks, I noticed a cam follower getting noisy. Definitely half engine speed and in the top-end area .... 'course it might be a small end bearing opening up (the car's been viciously clocked at some point). Then the noise changed - and got a bit worrying. Deffo big end this time, slower and deeper and got noticeably louder on a lightly trailing throttle and more intrusive the hotter the engine got. Ho hum - nomadic engine noises. Deep joy! It looked like engine out time.
Yesterday dawned bright and sunny - amazing! No ice, no rain, no snow ..... I'd obviously died in my sleep and had woken in paradise. I decided not to look for my seventy virgins right away (or whatever the current entitlement is). Instead, just to punish myself and ensure I retained as much as possible of my standard British post-winter depression, I was going to swap out the HP pump yet again for the nice shiny recon unit. Once I'd done that I was going to break out the stethoscope and pin down the noise that was doing the castanet fandango in the engine bay.
My first pump swap took me about 3 hours. This time, I just opened the bonnet, whistled loudly, and the two pumps obediently swapped places without any interference from me.
The interesting thing, on starting the engine immediately afterwards, was the almost total silence. The terminal big-end/wrist-pin/cam lobe racket had gone, disappeared, buggered off! 
The racket was all down to that bloody pump! Now I'm not a novice with engines. I was in the motor trade until age 40 and spend most of my non-computer time in my workshop up to my armpits in swarf and oil so, after 3 weeks in which to firm up my diagnosis, I'd have bet anyone twenty quid that my engine was in for major surgery. I'd have lost.
What puzzles me is how that HP pump was able to do such an amazingly accurate impersonation of those engine faults. What the hell's in there that can create such an intrusive clatter?
By contrast, the car's now transformed. The engine's completely rattle-free (I took it for a 20 mile pedal-session to make damned sure) and the suspension leaps to its feet like a recruit facing an RSM - and the steering's gone all light and fingertip-floaty. Lovely!
I just can't figure out the impersonating pump thing .............
NB: For anyone interested, here's a clip of the first recon pump sounding like a bag of spanners in a tumble drier. Hier klicken
And yes, it WAS full of oil!
