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The Mikuni impulse pump is widely used for two stroke engines on snowmobiles, ATV's and yes, even aircraft. Just in case you wondered what's inside one of these, here are some pictures taken during the rebuild of mine.
Once the six cover screws are removed the unit comes right apart.
Here are all the major parts; there are two gaskets, two diaphragms and two valve assemblies on the pump housing to replace. It's very straightforward. The rebuild kit is commonly available.
I gave the parts a good scrubbing, and cleaned up the faces of the valve plate with some 600 grit wet&dry abrasive sheet (wet, of course) on my surface plate. Only do this to the valve plate and not the covers - they have a small ridge that will help seal the gaskets.
It's amazing how much better engine parts look after they've been cleaned up. The next step is to modify the pump to make it suitable for aircraft use. One of the reasons that Mikuni pumps for Rotax engines cost more is that they have a bleed hole added to ensure that oil and/or gas doesn't hydrolock the pump. This hole is very small, 1/64th inch to be exact. There are drill bits available in this size but they are almost microscopic! You'll need a pin chuck to hold the bit and a very fine touch to do the drilling. The bleed hole is located on what will be the bottom of the pump. You won't be mounting it on the side of the engine on those two bosses that are exactly the right spacing - there's a danger that engine heat will cause vapour lock, so forget that idea. Instead, you need to mount it so that the impulse hose connector will be at the bottom. The bleed hole is situated so that any liquid will drain to the hole and be blown out.
Thankfully, the casting is fairly soft metal and the hole isn't very deep. You will need to "peck drill" this hole. This means drilling a little and then pulling out the bit to clear the chips. Then drill some more and repeat, until you're through to the other side. If you try to push the bit all the way through it will most certainly break. It does take a little time but you're saving a bunch of cash compared to the cost of the "official aircraft" version. After the drilling is done the part is blown clean of any tiny metal bits. The next photo shows the completed modification - can you believe that such a small hole may be the key to a more reliable engine?
My engine installation will use a single carb, so I need to add a wye connection on the outputs of the pump to combine them into a single feed. I could also just block off one of the outputs and the result would be the same - they're fed by the same chamber. This does allow me to change to a dual carb setup if I ever want to make things more complicated.
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