Wow.

Everytime I’ve had my pumps open they were a little oily. I think they are splashed by the motor oil. Not dry.

Sounds like your bearing cages fell apart…for whatever reason.

I rebuilt two pumps this year. The original bearings had nylon cages. Un shielded. For forty year old bearings they looked great.

On my rebuild I used SKF rubber sealed bearings and I pried off the seals. I surmised that the originals were open so the replacements should be open. I didn’t buy the conventional wisdom (here) that the shields hold the bearings in. It just didn’t make any sense so I removed them.

Why kind of bearings did you choose?

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79 300TD “Old Smokey” AKA “The Mistake” (SOLD)
82 240D stick shift 335k miles (SOLD)
82 300SD 300k miles
85 300D Turbodiesel 170k miles
97 C280 147k miles