More information on Carb'ed Kawasaki Vulcan 1500 Fuel Pumps

DO NOT BUY A $25 FUEL PUMP. It will crap the bed on the first all day trip. The rest of this blog is still relevant though.


This isn't my usual step by step blog. This is more of an informational blog about everything I learned about Carb'ed Kawasaki Fuel Pumps this time.


The first good news is that unlike the last time I had to replace one of these, there are now aftermarket alternatives to the $300 OEM Kawasaki pumps. I got one for like $25 delivered. It might not be as good as OEM, but for $25 I will buy a spare and keep it in the saddlebag.


The first bad thing about the aftermarket pump is that the inlet is not clearly marked. I discovered that you can blow into one fitting and if it blows out the other then that's the inlet. There is a check valve that makes this thing work.

The next bad part is that you can actually hear this one running. The tick tick is the pump. Initially when it was dry, it was really loud. I believe there is some kind of sensor for it to know when to pump at a higher frequency hence the irregular pattern to the sound. The other thing I realized today was that the pump is a reciprocating pump, I had assumed it was rotary pump like a oil pump. More on this further is this post.


This brings be back to something I had forgotten from the last time I replaced one of these pumps. These universal points switch repair kits are readily available online, but I have never found any instructions on how they work or how to install them.

 


I decide to figure out how to swap the points switch since my old pump was junk anyway. Let me tell you that prying these halves apart is not the way to fix one of these



You get a good look at the how the pump works though. The fuel never goes deeper than the 1/3 of the pump body where the inlet/outlet are. There is a reciprocating rod that pushes a diaphragm back and forth. The diaphragm pulls fuel in and pushes the fuel through the check valve and towards the carb.


The point switch is under the black cap. I thought so initially, but I couldn't figure out how to remove it until I just destroyed it. There is a screw that holds it together, but where is the head for the screw? Here's a look at the point switch and the chip that I assume controls the pressure. The coil that makes the magnetic field is inside the housing. I have no idea if a switch kit could have fixed this one.


The screw head has to be hidden under this glued on cover.


I decided to drill into the cover to see what I could find. As soon as my bit hit the head of the screw, the plastic cover popped off. I would suppose that the glue is not real thick, so if you're repairing one you could carefully cut the glue seam with an exacto knife to access the screw and remove the cap.