Pump Maintenance and Repair for Pressure Washers

When you yourself have a pressure washer business you'll eventually need to improve out or repair a pressure washer. There are always a few things you need to know to make such change outs easy. It's also possible to need to review on preventative maintenance to ensure that you don't need to be concerned about pump failure. Your pressure washer probably has one of two different pumps when it is industrial grade. The Cat Pump or perhaps a General pump; both are industry standards. General is the best choice in the industry for sales and many prefer Cat as it sucks better from plastic water tanks.

Your pump is powered by two parallel belts connected to your engine. You need to make sure not to starve your pump from water. Once the water tank is empty turn fully off the engine. Starving a pump will burn it out in about thirty-five minutes. Producer says five to ten minutes, but that's not life threatening. Your pump has a security feature whereby if you are not spraying the water, it will automatically by pass to the tank provided there's enough water for the complete loop. Thank you. We also thought it had been among our great ideas. You need to change the oil in the pump every month. Ensure that your pressure washer rig is on level ground and fill the pump to the red dot on the biggest market of the eyeglass. Over filling is really a really bad idea.

On your own pump you'll notice six large bolts. Inside the holes are check valves with springs. After 300-500 hours you must change them. You certainly can do this yourself. The valve kits are $60.000. It's super easy:

Unscrew bolts

Remove old valve

Replace valve

Ensure that you seat the valve evenly

Screw the bolt back by hand

Ensure the O-ring on the bolt is snug

Tighten with wrench pretty tight

Inspecting The Pump

If you drain the oil and it's got bubbles in it or has turned white, then you have a blown seal and water is getting into the oil because: It overheated because of water starvation; The casing cracked as a result of vibration; You forgot to improve the oil, dummy ($600 mistake and one lost day's work if you may get the parts that fast).

Check to see if the belts are tight. Or even tighten them. Search for water drips. A slow drip on the exit side of the pump could set you back as much as 150 PSI at the nozzle. A fast drip (two to three drops per second) might be a 250-300 PSI loss at the nozzle. A steady drip stream might be described as a 500 plus PSI loss. Once you see water leaking, fix the leak ASAP. Make sure to use ample Teflon tape when re-tightening fittings. This will stop future leaks, prevent rust and make fittings easy to split up in the future.

A gap in a hose or leak on the inlet side of the pump causes air to have in. The pump will act as if it's starving for water. It may even pulsate. Once the water level in your tank reaches a place below the leak in the hose, air will replace the water and you'll get zero pressure. That makes it quite difficult to wash anything.

Low pressure in the pump could be caused by a quantity of things; they're undoubtedly the most common, but this isn't a complete list, generally if you go through this list the situation is likely to be solved, check the easiest things first such as water supply:

Faulty pressure gauge (Replace)

Out of water (Fill up tank)

Old or worn-out tip at gun nozzle (Replace)

Incorrect tip (Remove and replace)

Belt slippage (Tighten belt)

Hose leaks (Fix leaks)

Faulty unloader (Replace)

Mis-adjusted unloader (Re-adjust)

Worn packing in pump (Take it to dealer)

Inline filter clogged with dirt (Clean it)

Obstruction in spray nozzle tip (Remove it)

Chemical metering valve sucking air (Turn it off)

Slow engine rpm (Check engine)

When you yourself have a pulsating issue at the gun or the machine is Fluctuating pressure, this is a completely different problem than low pressure. You need to check for: Worn piston packing (Call dealer). Pump sucking air (Fix hole), Blockage in valve (Remove, check valves and remove blockage). If it is fluctuating and very noisy or if your pump is just noisy check for:

Air in suction line (Check water supply and connections)

Broken or weak inlet or discharge valve springs (Call dealer)

Excessive matter in valves (Check and clean if necessary)

Worn bearings (Check and replace. If necessary, call dealer)

Vibrations from mounting (Tighten it. If unable, call dealer)