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3200psi Power Washer -- low pressure issue

Melensdad

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
The lovely Mrs_Bob went to Home Depot about 3 years ago and came home with a Ryobi 3200psi power washer. Kohler 196cc 4 stroke 6(?)hp gas engine. Now I have a bunch of Ryobi 18v battery power tools, but if I was going to buy a power washer I probably would have opted for a higher end brand. I was glad to see this had a Kohler engine. She picked Ryobi because she recognized the brand from my power tools.

Anyway, it's been great up until a few days ago.

Watched a bunch of youtube videos and the general consensus is that most of the problems come from the water pump. So $50 and new pump assembly shows up on my doorstep yesterday. Changed it out this morning. Still not right.

A bunch more youtube videos and the 2nd biggest issue is a carburetor issue. I'm not a small engine guy. But I know enough that if I can't clear it out with fuel line cleaner and carb spray then I should probably load it into the truck and drop it at a shop. So off to AutoZone and I came home some brand of fuel additive that claims to clean the engine from the inside out. Also got some carb spray cleaner. Cleaned out the foam air filter in the kitchen sink when the lovely Mrs_Bob was not there to witness that mess.

Reassemble and it is working "pretty well" but clearly not 'quite right' . . . engine seems to be running better. But not perfect. I go back to the pressure pump and look at the pressure valve, I don't have a pressure tester, so I can only 'eyeball' the setting. It seems to be set too low as I compare the new pump's spring to the old one. Adjust it and, like magic, I have good pressure. But it also seems to be bogging down the engine. So maybe too much pressure?

Backed it down a bit, I'd say I've got it about 75-80% right. At this point I can power wash the pool deck, albeit with some extra effort, a few more passes of the 15" rotating concrete cleaning disk, and lots of vibration into my arthritic hands.

Break now. I have 2000 square feet of patio. Maybe 500 sq ft left to do. But the little Kohler seems to be struggling too much. The pressure seems like it is still too low, but the struggling Kohler is now my concern.

Figure I'll let it cool down, change the oil, refill the gas, and finish off the project tomorrow. I've got fencing this evening.

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"Mechanic in a bottle" is your best friend for cleaning fuel systems. Add it to your fuel, run it for a few minutes then let sit for 24 hours and run the rest of it through. Can't count the # of engines I've saved with this product.

Check your hoses and jets to make sure they're clear.

For cleaning a patio, I like a pressure washer surface cleaner. Does 10x better than just a jet. Be careful though. It'll strip wood bare and if you have a broom finish on concrete, you may end up with exposed aggregate.
 
Try draining the fuel bowl on the carburetor, could have water in it, should be drained at least once a year. Easy to do, either take the bowl off with one bolt or some actually have a bolt you can remove to drain it without removing the bowl.
 
Got oil into the little Kohler engine, of course oil filler is behind one of the wheels. So a lot of oil ended up spilled. Some went into the engine. It was "mid-dip stick" when I started it the other day. It was on the low side of the dipstick just before I filled it. But there have been 2 full tanks of gas used between those 2 checks.

I'm getting a 'pulsing' of the pump and don't really understand why.

It will run perfectly for 30-to 60 or so seconds then start to pulse. If I let off the trigger, wait a second or two, and then start water flow again I have another 30+ seconds of good stable pressure before the pulsing begins again.

I don't know if that is a throttle problem? Or a pump pressure spring adjustment problem? Engine generally seems to be running smooth, perhaps not running fast enough? Seems logical that if the engine is not spinning fast enough the pump is not going to be able to put out the pressure called for?

I've never messed with one of these before so honestly just trying to figure it out.



bczoom said:
For cleaning a patio, I like a pressure washer surface cleaner. Does 10x better than just a jet.
Click to expand...

Yes, that is what I'm using. It's sort of a 15" diameter round upside down plastic cake plate with spinning spray arms on the underside. Does a great job . . . when I get enough pressure to spin those spray arms.
 
Does the engine have a manual choke? When it starts pulsing, try increasing the choke to see if the pulse stops. If it does run better, you have a carb or fuel line issue.
 
Now when you say it’s pulsing, is the engine speeding up and slowing down? Or does it just seem to be the water pressure? Are you sure you’re getting a good supply of water to the pump with sufficient pressure? A slight kink in the hose can do that, when you stop spraying it builds up enough pressure to spray for a little bit before it starts surging because of a lack of water.
 
OK so more updates, I'm going to say final update?

Yes, it has screens at the hose connections.

Stopped at HomeDepot to pick up a proper size METRIC hex key to allow me to adjust the pressure spring. Somewhere, probably behind the dryer with my missing socks, there are 3 more sets of METRIC hex key sets, but after looking for them for the past 2 days I gave in and bought a new set to go along with 3 sets of SAE hex keys that I found.

So got back, adjusted the spring, attached the surface cleaning disk and set about cleaning the last roughly 500sq feet. Pretty much the same problem persisted. It would work, then I would lose pressure and it pulse. Let go of the trigger, wait a second and it would work again when I engaged the trigger. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Until job was done.

Switched the surface washer to a "fan" spray so that I could spray the dirt off the patio into the lawn and adjacent planters and the whole unit ran flawlessly. Kohler never bogged down. Never lost pressure, never pulsed, etc.

At this point I think that the carb was a minor problem, which was resolved by carb spray and a fuel additive/cleaner.

I also think, contrary to YouTube videos saying it is the biggest problem with these sprayers, that the original pump was probably NOT the problem. So that was $50 spent to diagnose a problem that wasn't.

I'm going to BET that there is also a problem with the pie pan shaped surface cleaning disk. I'll dig into that some other day. I only use that thing 1 day every 3 years, based on the fact that this is only the 2nd time it's been used in the 3 years that we have had this pressure washer.
 
For the floor scrubber, are you talking about something like this?

If so, the jets get clogged pretty quickly from sitting. A small wire poked through the hole normally frees it up.
 
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