Good luck & please let us know how your new pump works out. I have done same as you mention here and ended up with a NEW pump (not from AN but their competitor) that immediately wet sumped down to the oil tank screen in just a few days. A careful lapping of that new pump improved it significantly. However after reworking several Norton oil pumps down to very close tolerances (under .001" measured clearances) and monitoring them in action I believe Ashley from AN's observation is correct... i.e. Norton oil pump design is such that wet sumping is inevitable. The answer is a properly reworked close-tolerance oil pump (clearances LT .001") in combination with one of several available excellent crankcase sump reed valves (NYC Norton, JS engineering, etc.) addresses the situation.