Club 80-90 Forums

I have been investigating my low oil pressure on the van and as I had the sump off anyway, I thought I'd pull a couple of rod and main bearing to see what sort of condition these were in.
Can anyone tell me if the below is correct? This is the No.4 main bearing cap. All of the other mains had a smooth bottom bearing (in the cap) and then the grooved bearing in the top (block). I know that a new set of these bearings comes with 5 grooved and 5 smooth so it seems very strange that No.4 would have a grooved bearing on both the top and bottom. Having said that I have just watched a YouTube video of a bloke reassembling a VW engine and he a had grooved top and bottom bearings on No.3 so maybe this is correct?
I can't easily remove No's 1 & 5 without pulling the engine (which I may have to do) so no idea what is going on with those two.

Intermediate shaft is often overlooked ,vacuum pump end fiddley to fit,low pressure light flickers when hot at idle

Cheers, the intermediate shaft doesn't appear to have any play but obviously its very difficult to properly assess this with the engine still in the vehicle. I will probably end up dropping the engine so will replace the shaft bearings at that time.
I don't really have any history on the van but the engine has been rebuilt at some point as it has undersize main bearings. Some work on the van has been done very well and some very badly. I was just curious if the person who last had the engine apart could have been daft enough to put a top bearing shell in the bottom cap or whether it was actually meant to be like this?

Hi,give these people a ring;AW Engineering Darwen Ltd 01254 773250,they recondition VW engines
Kr,Baz.

Having consulted a few knowledgeable people and also the Bentley it seems that this is definitely wrong and the grooved shell should only be in the block and not the cap. I'm not sure if this has anything to do with the low oil pressure as I have also found out that the oil pump seems badly worn (the gears and housing are deeply scratched) and also the big end oil clearances are all over the wear limit even when checked with new bearing shells.

It looks like I best get cracking, dropping the engine. Any tips/tricks for doing this? I notice the two manuals I have suggest removing the engine complete with the support bars. Is this necessary?