I the reassembled the unit taking care in the postion of the pistons, springs solenoid piston (which must go back as it came out, look at the photos), submerged the whole thing in fresh oil for about 10mins, then bagged and tagged it.
I then repeated the same on Bank 2, this is bank 2 unit below:
Note that this configuration is not only different to bank 1 but there is an extra oilway at the top
Once the unit was cleaned, it was primed, bagged and tag an back into storage with its sister. I wont know if it has improved things, though there was definitely and issue with contamination or killed the unit until I put the engine all back together, so I will update with observations then but hopefully at least the photos may help others
Now, I have an engineering background and looking at the unit, I feel it should be possible to refurbish it. The only inaccessible part is the central piston, which from what I have seen and feel must have some o-ring internally. There appears to be no way in as the circlip seems to be help in place by the tabs that have been flayed out in the photo below
I can see there are no kits available to refurbish the unit, but I have purchased a second hand one to dismantle with a view of what is needed as there should be no reason why the metal cap in the photo cannot be reproduced. In any case, this is just an experiment and I will share my observations and findings in case it helps others
