I just redid a pump the other day. I tried to simply reseal it. Everything went fine until I had to replace the green o-ring on the distribution head. I did it carefully, but even so, the cam-rollers slipped out of place. After I finished the whole reseal, I tried to spin the pump over by hand (with the sprocket on there), and it wouldn't turn over. I ended up pulling the whole thing apart to reveal that in fact, the rollers had slipped out of place.
I reaseembled following the images on vwdieselparts.com forum. They're good to a point. It turns out, I put the control collar on backwards, and had indexed the cam-plate 180 out in relation to the input shaft (double whammy). In the end, I gave up for a week, and then returned to it with fresh eyes. Here are some observations on that fiasco.
With the cam plate 180 degrees out from the input shaft, and the control collar on backwards:
1) The pump would pump just fine. Although I didn't have a clear line on the return hose, I could see fuel being sucked thru the intake hose
2) There was practically no juice coming out of the delivery valves. It almost seemed like the pump kept building pressure, but was blowing it out of the lower seals and thru the return hose (I ended up replacing the lower seals out of fear afterwards). NO start
3) So, the vanes were working fine, but the fuel was not being delivered properly. The cam plate being out probably did not affect anything so long as I knew it was out, all I had to do was set the IP sprocket 180 degrees out (easy to do on a Rabbit, not so easy on later models).
While I'm no expert, by any stretch, I'd heed the advice of Giles, Zukgod, and Libbybapa. Take it apart again, clean everything, make sure the springs are in their correct place, make sure the came-plate is indexed properly, and make sure the control collar is facing the right way. As shiity as the Chinese parts are, I highly doubt that they'd prevent your car/pump from working. Their failure is longevity. While I have no personal experience in the matter, I've heard enough sucess stories (short term) using them to suspect that they work, although the quality is a bit inferior.
I did a bench test (a heavy-duty electric drill coupled to the 19mm nut on the injection pump, after the sprocket had been installed). Fill the pump, put a leader to a CLEAN bottle of diesel fuel, and feed the return lines back to the same bottle. Spin the pump over with the drill, and you should see spritzes of fuel coming out of the delivery valves (you might have to hang a piece of paper in front of the valves to see it). In order to get the fuel flowing, you may need to actuate the governor a bit. If everything 's in order, you should see fuel coming out.
The only thing I can think of is:
1) Vanes are stuck. They're not pumping enough volume/creating enough pressure. Was the car running before on this pump?
2) Too complicated for my feeble mind: refer to higher powers like Giles etc.