[Vwdiesel] Rabbit diesel oil pressure

[William J Toensing]

Back in 1979 I bought a new Rabbit diesel. A year or so later, I installed an after market oil pressure gage & ammeter bought at a speed shop. I was running Amsoil 10W40  synthetic at the time. At startup, the oil pressure gage would always peg at 100 but after warming up would drop to 25 pounds at idle. I exchanged the 0/100 oil pressure gage for one that read 0/200. The gage at start up would peg at 200 but soon would dropping & once it would start to warm up would drop to 120 psi as I recall, not sure. In my 1981 Dasher diesel which has an aftermarket 0/100 oil pressure gage, the oil pressure gage will peg at 100 & suspect it would peg much higher if I had a 0/200 gage. I am running Amsoil 20W/50 Series 2000 synthetic. The Dasher has about 240,000 miles on it. I think these VW Diesels have very high oil pressure at start up & also recall hearing many years ago they run up to 40 pounds PSI in the cooling system resulting in shortened radiator & heater core life due to expansion & contraction. Is this correct or incorrect?