I finally got my '83 244ti running again. 2 months ago it was running excellent before I removed the head to change the gasket. Its been a long road back (head replacement too) but its getting back to where it was. It's idling, its running under load (poorly), it has imposed its own redline at about 5,600rpm (formerly 4,000 before retiming and fixing most vacuum leaks) and now it throws a whole new curveball at me. After running (not driving) the thing for a while today, it inexplicably started heating up and losing oil pressure at the same time. Soon it was slowly rising past 3/4 on the coolant temp guage, and oil pressure was below one bar at idle, and just barely above one bar at 4,000rpm. The oil pressure was continuing to drop even after that so I said, ok, I'll shut it off and change the oil. The filter is fairly new so I didn't change that. I put 10w30 in there (80 degrees outside) and fired it back up. While the oil was cold it was at like 2.5-3 bar oil pressure. Once the oil heated up again, it started sinking back to below 1 bar, so I shut it off again. I have no idea what the problem is, but I'm scared to death that I've destroyed the turbo and possibly engine parts. Does the oil pump sound like a likely culprit for this? The car only has a max of 130,000 miles on it, failed ODO of course.

If it is the oil pump, is it really as easy as the haynes makes it seem? Can I get at all the oil pan bolts, then remove the oil pan without jacking up the engine? Has anyone done this before? Thanks for any help you have to give.
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Isaac Babcock - '83 245DL and '83 244ti, 'Sounds to me like I am right..' -JakeJ