fresh water foot pump only trickles

[bec.chandler]

I have a fresh water foot pump that is plumbed between the water tank and the primary galley faucet (there is a 3-way valve so I can move between using foot pump and electric pump). But when using the foot pump, the rebound is really slow and water barely trickles out of the faucet. Anybody know why that might be?

More info on the whole setup...
Water flows:
From tank to 3-way valve, one way to foot pump, one way to electric pump
From foot pump (through a 1-way valve to prevent backflow) to a T and up to faucet
From electric pump (through filter) to other end of that T and up to faucet
So really the foot pump is just pumping water from tank (which is 5' away and similar height) through a 1-way valve and up to the faucet.

Any ideas would be great, I can't figure it out! (I like having the foot pump very much, so I don't need advice on only using pressure water or getting a hand pump)

Thanks!

[Sailmonkey]

Has the pump ever worked with this particular check valve in place?

If the valve is new, the pump isn't strong enough to open the valve by the internal spring alone.

If the valve is old, either the valve is getting sticky or the internal spring in the pump has gotten weak/broken.

[bec.chandler]

The whole system is somewhat new (installed two years ago but not used regularly until now) - including foot pump and check valve.

I feel like the flow has decreased, but I don't trust my own observation of that over time.

Easy to test though - I will take the check valve out of the system and see if the flow improves.

[bec.chandler]

Well I did some digging yesterday after posting this question, and I found the culprit -- it was simply a dirty filter on the faucet! The flow is still not nearly as strong as the salt water pump, which by process of elimination I determined is because of something to do with the faucet itself. Here are the tests I did--

I removed the check valve from the system - no change
I hooked the fresh water lines to the salt water foot pump (which pushes salt water just fine) - no change
So I ruled out everything but the faucet.

Cleaning out or removing the filter on the end of the faucet helped with the recoil action on the foot pump, but the water is still pretty slow flowing. That's ok for my purposes - it just keeps us from using too much fresh water. If I wanted better flow, I think I'd need to install a dedicated faucet (one of those little bent tube ones, I don't remember what they're called).

Hope this helps others with similar symptoms from spending quite so many hours crunched up on the floor of the galley!