Pressure washer repair rabbit hole....

[Ecapnation]

Long story short I have sentimental pressure washer that I was bequeathed by my long time friend after his father's passing...

It's a husky and well maintained motor wise but from sitting the pump is either sized or damaged. I can order a new pump but being a stubborn and cheap engineer I want to tackle fixing it. It's mostly metric orings do not bad right?

My questions are.....

Any one else ever attempted this? Any pit falls?

Time is relatively my only expenditure as I have all the seals on hand already plus a schematic for the pump

[Seajay]

Oh dear... I tried this suffering as well. The motor is the easy part. I didn't have a schematic but just pulled it apart. Corrosion and rust is all I found and could never figure out "WHY" it refused to work properly.

Engine ran, sometimes there would be pressure, but otherwise it was just the engine pushing water through with no added pressure. Ultimately it was cheaper to buy something else than to source replacement parts. It was more than just finding o-rings.

[Ecapnation]

It's a $900 pressure washer.... Pumps new are around $120. Ironically the pistons and pump components are all stainless and aluminum.

What it's doing is shutting off when water hits the pump. The motor (Honda) runs fine on its own.

[Tarsun2]

if its been sitting for a long time with water in it, theres only so much you can do. Sure, "anything made can be fixed"... but at what point is it no longer the same washer as before.
if there is rust, you might be able to clean and fix, if there is pitting, you cant really fix that without replacing the damaged pieces.

if it were me, id buy the new pump and get it running. id keep the old pump to fiddle with.

[Grendel]

I'm getting ready to do one myself even have the rebuild kit on order. My son in-law gave me a professional Simpson that was from his short lived pressure washing business. Given the rebuild kit was readily available I assume it is very doable since it is just a pump and I have rebuilt several high pressure pumps/compressors when I was still in the Navy.

[HammerD]

No specific experience but I’m also an engineer that refuses to trash things, especially things linked to some type of memory. strip it down and get into it. You’ll at least learn what your actual culprit is and you can go from there.

[Ecapnation]

So.....

Here's my follow up.

I'm $150 into this repair project and have two working pumps lol.

Found a company that sold compatible pumps with a rebuild kit so naturally i ended up with two working pumps.

Tada!

[HammerD]

*looks around* you work through projects quicker than I. lol

[Ecapnation]

It's a task I needed to do since the beginning of the spring so it's been haunting me.

[Tarsun2]

quick pro-crastinator tip:

if you want to get something done in a timely manner, make it inconvenient for the time being.


case in point: i wanted to put flooring in some rooms upstairs. instead of storing the boxes of wood out of the way, i left them in the middle of the room along with all the tools.

or when i wanted to paint, i left the 5 gal bucket in the kitchen and all the tools on the dining room table.

[coyote]

This post makes me believe you are my wife stalking me on MCB.

[Seajay]

So.....

Here's my follow up.

I'm $150 into this repair project and have two working pumps lol.

Found a company that sold compatible pumps with a rebuild kit so naturally i ended up with two working pumps.

Tada!

Awesome, so you got it working? You faired much better than I, although my machine was pretty old and not $900. What did you actually fix? Or was it something simple, like it just wasn't priming correctly?

[Ecapnation]

Replaced everything rubber and Teflon plus the small plastic valves in the bottom end.