Oil pump upgrade, gears blocked

[mtb_tuli]

Have fitted my upgrade kit with the spacer plate and the SD1 gears, which is well known in this forum.
Followed the manual, first found out, it did not work with the two small holes to be drilled, which should be done on a good stationary drilling machine and not by hand . Even a minor gradient results in blocked gears. Ok, only one hole used and everything carefully fixed by tightening the screws and by rotating the gears. That works. But, when using the two neoprene gaskets from the kit and with final tightening, you can´t move the gears (using a screwdriver into the slot for the distributor). Loosening the screws, gears rotate...
Ok, open again and again and checked everything. Original casings are very good, no real signs of wear, but clear, if original casing (pocket for the gears) would be weared off, gears then would rotate, but that´s not the correct way, I think. Then, installed in addition to the 2 neoprene gasket one original gasket and now gears run free. It´s not possible to feel any free axial movement for the distributor drive gear by hand, but who can "feel" that.
In the meantime I have opened and closed it 5 or 6 times, every time cleaning housing gasket surface and the gaskets from the Vaseline , where I´m not sure, if they still can be used after tightening and loosing.

Now, I´m a little bit scared to install it back to the car. Any advice ?

 

[harveyp6]

IIRC the gaskets included with the kits are too thin and cause that problem. As you realise you need the correct running clearance, and the first step to that would be trying genuine Land Rover gaskets.

Vaultsman on here had a pretty comprehensive thread on this a while back.

 

[rockdemon]

I had to try a couple to get one that ran freely whilst not leaving loads of room

 

[mtb_tuli]

Ok, thanks for it. The manual says, only use these gaskets .
Have taken it apart again and measured the gap between gears and housing as described in the manual (bolted down the spacer with two screws to have it plain on the housing). Gap is 0,30 mm, it should be 0,05 (-0,15) mm.
The two neoprene gaskets together have 0,25 mm, so it means, they bring down the gap to 0,05 but then you must use another gasket with the original thickness. The one I had "on stock" and added, has 0,25 mm, so it should be ok now, but as I must order some other spares, I will order 2 or 3 gaskets again and check them.