$25 Pressure Washer

This one had been for sale for a few weeks. I ended up grabbing it today. The seller was very up front; runs if you put gas in the carb. I brought my can of cheater spray (starting fluid). Long story short, fired right up with a few shots of spray.

It’s got a Honda engine and the oil looked decent. Pump looked ok; didn’t see any cracks or leaks.

It didn’t come with a hose, gun, or any tips, but I have a spare hose and gun from another unit I had years ago. I ordered an adapter from Amazon so that setup with work with this unit.

I’ll get into the carb this week and report back. I have a feeling it’s gummed up from ethanol gas.

 

Looks like a solid buy...my brother snags pressure washers anytime he sees a deal on one....especially larger ones with Honda powered CAT pumps...he has somewhere that he can get reasonably priced pump rebuild kits from.

I snagged a Honda GX390 yesterday...I seen the ad a couple weeks ago and thought about it for $200, but when he dropped it to $100, I messaged right away. It was formerly a pressure washer engine...he said it doesn't have many hours on it, as the "numbnutz truck drivers" at their shop burnt the pump up, then it just sat around in the corner for a long time until he snagged it for a project that never happened...must have had the gas drained out of it as the tank didn't smell or look skunky and it seems to run well.
It does need a new recoil starter handle now though...starting a loose 390 cc engine is a little tricky, but it started first pull, then quit when I took the choke off too soon (I'm used to how my GX340 runs)
When I went to restart it the handle ripped out of my hand and bounced off the external gas tank seam, splitting the handle in 2, with the loose half going flying into his daughter's boyfriend's Audi, which he was just getting ready to leave in. No harm to the Audi fortunately...it hit pretty hard though!
I figured I had to buy it after I broke it

 

Pretty early example of BE. Should take a 3.5 nozzle. Your old nozzles should be eitched somewhere...look for 35 at end of a string of numbers like below. First two digits give the fan degree (spread).

 

Those compression stroke pulls are nasty. I nursed a hand once for two months after a similar incident. Felt like it tore my two middle fingers clean off.

 

Thanks guys! I had an older Craftsman that a buddy gave me. After a bit, the pump was leaking and caused major kickback when trying to start it. Ouch!

I was able to dig into this a bit today. I pulled the carb and the main jet was pretty clogged. I pulled all the jets, soaked them, hit all the orifices with a small wire. Fired up on the third pull! And surged like a you know what. Pulled the carb again, another round of cleaning. More surging. So I ended up buying a new carb and that should be here tomorrow. $15 and change. Maybe one of these days, I’ll get an ultrasonic cleaner. But it’;s hard to argue with a $15 carb. I did the same with my snowblower and it runs great. So hoping this has the same result.

Carb assembly:


Carb bowl, it was pretty nasty, but I’ve seen worse.


I always like to pull the shroud/housing and make sure there’s no blockage or nests. I lost a mower engine years ago because of a mouse nest. You don’t step on that landmine twice.


Someone put in a “Torch” plug. I’ll be getting an NGK as a replacement.

 

Something I learned on YouTube. Take a butane torch to those jets, if they're brass. That buildup turns to ash and is then easily cleanable.

 

Thanks! Here’s where it gets interesting. I have a spare hose and gun from a Craftsman unit. It has an adjustable nozzle vs the tips. I haven’t used it for years. I’ll probably get a fitting so I can use the regular tips.

 

Skier76 improving his small engine hoard
My Honda pressure washer motor is running my wood splitter when pump broke

 

That’s exactly what I was thinking! If this unit had a bad pump, I could always mothball the engine and have a spare engine….if the replacement pump wasn’t worth the money to swap over.

 

So an update on the pressure washer!

Pulled the carb and gave it a really good cleaning:




The bowl was pretty dirty, but not the worst I’ve seen:


I don’t have pics, but the main jet was clogged. I also cleaned out the emulsion tube as well. Both were cleaned with a fine wire and got a good soak in the bucket of Berryman’s Carb Cleaner.

After losing a lawnmower engine to a mouse nest, I always check under the cover/shroud to make sure the cooling fins are clean and air can flow without obstructions. This was pretty clean.



Generic plug! I’ll get an NGK.



So here’s where it gets interesting. I cleaned the carb…twice. Despite that, the engine was surging bad. The choke helped, but you can’t run a unit like this on choke and expect it to build pressure. I rolled the dice on an Amazon carb. Put that on, along with a new air filter, new generic spark plug and all new gaskets between the airbox, carb and engine. Still surged. But slightly less.

So, loaded up the parts cannon and ordered the isolator that goes between the carb and the engine. It’s plastic and from what I read, can crack and cause air leaks. I did spray the area down with carb cleaner when the engine was running and no change in RPM. But the ol’ internet says the cracks can be small and not be effected by carb cleaner. So we’ll see!

Fuel is flowing fine, carb bowl is filling with fuel…so the lean condition must be an air leak somewhere. I’m hoping….

 

Did you drop the emulsion tube out of the carb n clean it? Fuel needle too?
If cleaning the easy stuff doesn't do it, then a passage in the carb body is probably plugged/restricted.
Check valve clearance?

 

Yes, pulled the tube out and cleaned all the passages with a fine wire. Soaked it as well. Cleaned up the needle and seat too. New carb had surging…but not as bad. Still surges too much to make the unit useful.

Hoping the isolator takes care of it!

 

If not, get some torch tip cleaners and 'bore' out the holes in the main jet slightly. I've had ~40% success rate with that getting rid of the surge.

 

My fix all for carbs is, disconnect the fuel hose at the tank, raise it up and keep it there, start engine and fill the hose with Seafoam as it runs, it will eventually fill the carb with Seafoam and stall, forget about it for a few days, drain and start, usually runs fine

 

I used to swear by Berryman's but then they changed the formula.

 

Well, the parts cannon continuous to miss the target! No change with the isolator. So I went to the valves.

Intake was in spec, exhaust was slightly loose. Judging by that blue RTV, someone had been in there before.



That didn’t solve the issue.

So, on to the unloader!


No issues there either.

I played with the pilot jet on the aftermarket carb to hopefully fatten up the mix. Didn’t work.

Sooooooo! I have a carb cleaning tool kit on the way. I’m going to surgically clean the OEM carb and give that another shot. It’s been a bit frustrating, but from when it ran, it built pressure. So if I can this engine running smoothly, I should have a decent unit.

 

Looks like that engine probably has a governor to control rpm with engine load. I know nothing about them but could this be where the surge is coming from?

 

Possibly...but surging is also a super common symptom of a carb that is just not quite right.
Lean, or maybe just not atomizing the fuel correctly.
If it straightens out running a little choke, then it is certainly carb related.
You could also mist some gas into the foam of the air filter, but adding choke is easier.
When you clean the carb, blow some aerosol carb cleaner, and compressed air through all the carb body passages, after the float, jet(s), emulsion tube, fuel screw, etc, are removed. Sometimes the issue is in the body. (maybe 10% of the time, IME)

 

So this has been quite the challenge! Let me list everything that’s been done so far:

New Honda OEM Isolator
New gaskets (from the engine block to the air box)
Completely cleaned OEM carb; all jets, passages were cleaned with tools from a carb cleaning kit, spray, air compressor…soaked all jets…then cleaned everything again.
Adjusted the valves
Removed the unloader spring and verified the unloader wasn’t stuck and moves freely.

And here’s where we are:

https://youtube.com/shorts/SwSEZ_a_UMQ?si=HQqM2N7A6BPrjhg1

It’s still surging with no load and under load. Surges with the choke on. I had the pilot backed out two turns as a baseline. Slowly turned it out..no change. Then went for broke…about 6 turns. No change.

I’ve been using AI to help me troubleshoot. The next suggestion was to adjust the governor. I’m going to do that next and see where that gets us. I did note that there is a slight oil leak around the governor shaft where it goes into the engine. The shaft itself will move slightly in and out (axial movement?) There’s no slop up and down or side to side. The governor arm moves towards the carb and retracts smoothly in those directions.

Another thing to note which I think I mentioned above. If you look at that globbed on blue RTV on the valve cover, someone had been in there before. So who knows what else has been tinkered with in the past.

I honestly thought this would be a simple carb overhaul & clean…boy was I wrong! While I don’t have much money into this, I do have a bit of time. That being said, I’ve got a much better understanding of these GC engines!

 

Generally those Honda GC motors are bulletproof..
You happened to get one that a shade tree messed with…

surging sounds like a possibility of air leak?