I am a little concerned about some of the comments that have been
said about this thread.  I suspect that the real problem with Richard
Ingram's player is the pneumatics and not the pump.

Have you tried playing the piano from the pedals?  If it is extremely
hard to get it to play, then your problem isn't the suction box,
it's the action stack.  You should be able to easily push up on the
individual key pneumatics with your finger and get the notes to play.

And 45 inches of water should be plenty of vacuum to operate this
player.  I don't think that removing the guts from the suction box will
make much difference to your problem.  I could be completely off base
here but I don't think so.

Pete Knobloch
Tempe, Arizona