So what are the symptoms of an injection pump that needs a rebuild? My 84 1.6TD starts up great, runs fine,has some greyish/black smoke on hard acceleration/hill climbing (which I'd love to reduce or eliminate). But it's got over 420,000 km on it. What are the warning signs?........
Hmmm, maybe I could just tell you the difference between the old pump and the new pump in my car. Idle: old pump: uneven, shaky, hesitating idle, and if I revved the motor and then let it drop, it would go below idle, shake a bit, then slowly come back up to idle again. New pump: idles at 1000rpm, touch the pedal and it jumps up to 2500 really quickly. Lots of peppiness. Never goes below 1000. Feels like it's always ready to jump to life. The turbo: old pump: no noticeable boost under 3000rpm. Above 3000 rpm, some boost, but not all the time, kind of came and went. I thought my turbo was screwed. New pump: boost at just over idle. Really scared me at first when I had the car in first gear driving through a parking lot at around 1400rpm and the turbo kicked in and the car shot forward. It's almost hard to control now, but definately more fun. Starting from 1st from a stop, I get boost maybe two seconds into the start, regardless of rpm. Really takes off above 2000rpm. My main problem now is controlling the car. It wants to go. General driveability: Old pump: car was a dog. Had to really press on the pedal to get it to go. I got used to driving with the pedal half way down because that was the only way I could keep up with traffic. New pump: touch the pedal, car shoots forward. I haven't tried pressing down too far yet because I really don't need to. The engine just screams when it accelerates, and I am hardly giving it any fuel at all. It feels like a new car. Hot weather starting: old pump: the car had to be cranked quite a while before it would start when hot. I was told this was because the pump was worn out and couldn't develop enough fuel pressure to open the injectors (155bar injectors open at around 2000psi). This is worse when it is hot because metal expands when heated so worn parts have even bigger wear problems when hot. New pump: never tested it yet in hot weather (it's -15 outside right now). Hopefully this problem will be solved.
The main problem I had was just lack of power, poor fuel economy, and a general lack of peppiness and lack of life in the engine. With the new pump it's free revving and very powerful. Completely different from how it was.
You need to remember though that my engine was rebuilt 15,000km ago so essentially I have a fresh rebuilt engine and a fresh rebuilt pump, and also fresh rebuilt 155bar injectors. You might not get as good results with an old motor with weak compression. - all this in a rusty 18 year old jetta with faded paint and cheap vw fox rims, a total sleeper car

Next up is rebuild the cylinder head and add an intercooler.