How To Fix A Pressure Washer That Has Low Pressure

good day guys lots of us out there have pressure washers power washers whatever you want to call them sooner or later you are going to run into the problem where you have no pressure or low pressure on your pressure washer thanks for coming back to Steve small engine saloon again thanks for tuning in today I'm going to take you through some really easy checks that you can check yourself before you take this into a small engine shop and spend all kinds of money on it getting fixed that might not require that money to be to be spent we're talking easy checks I'm not going to take you in to the guts of the pump itself we're talking to the Pistons the high-pressure seals the little check valves and stuff like that inside one of these we're just going to go with the easy stuff right now I'm gonna use a Budweiser for doing this job today I really believe that you can use any beer for doing this job it's gonna be this easy I have actually heard also that if you don't have beer a rum and coke will work for this also so go ahead and try that out if you don't have any beer first of all there's generally two different styles of pumps you can have a horizontal pump it comes off the side to the engine like that one right there and then you have the style that goes underneath of your pot of your engine like that and you have a vertical shaft engine a lawn mower style engine that sits on top of that to run those these are a little bit harder to work on there's not as many adjustments and things to check on these but horizontal pumps not too bad first thing I want you to do is hook your pressure washer up like you normally would when you're gonna go to use it put your garden hose in there high-pressure hose where it should be wand get all up don't start your engine just have your garden hose turned on now when you pull the trigger on that wand is there any water peeing under the end of that nozzle if you pull that trigger even when your engines not running there should be water peeing out of the end of there if there's no water coming out of that it's plugged somewhere best place to start to check yes you got it the tip the nozzle itself happens all the time the tips plug pull the tip the nozzle out of your wand hold it up to the light and see if you can actually see light coming through there it's a tiny little hole but you should still be able to see light coming through there if you can't see light coming through there there could be something plugged in there a blockage in there itself I actually happen to have one right here that is actually plugged you can clearly see it there's no light coming through there it's a little pebble or a little piece of something stuck in there a little piece of rust may be coming through the system try to unplug that if you want to a little watch repair screwdriver a tiny little screwdriver like this try to poke that out of there a twist tie wire work sometimes you just try to get that under there tiny little drill bit if you have tiny little drill bits get that under there somehow if you have a compressor with an air hose nozzle on the end of it blow it out until you can see light coming through that tip if you can't get it out simply just pick and pick one of your other nozzles everybody has an assortment of of different tips nozzles before the pressure washer just put a different one in if that fits your problem that's great if you know your tip is clear because you can see light through there it's blocked somewhere else the only other place that I can think of that where it would be blocked is right where your high-pressure hose goes into the pump itself right where you clip that on not your garden hose but where your high-pressure hose goes on might be plugged in they're easy to take that out can't give you the rep size or anything like that because they're just different for every horizontal pump out there there could be 3/4 it could be a 22 millimeter unscrew that out of there now when you unscrew this out of there be aware that there's a little spring and a little plunger thing in there so don't lose that don't drop it on the ground have that spring go Bing and it's gone pull out a part carefully and get that out there's the spring and the little plunger with a little o-ring on the side of it now do the same thing with that piece right there that you did with the nozzle the tip look through it at a light bulb and see if you can see through that you should be able to see through there it's a tiny little hole also a little bit bigger than the one that's in your nozzle but it's still a very small ball if you can't see through that then that's your problem right there that's plug most common reason that's going to be plug is because this little plunger thing that we took out right here they're going on the end of it you might not see an o-ring on the end of it if that o-ring is gone that's actually quite a common thing that ol ring breaks it comes off and it gets jammed in that little tiny little hole in there again unplug that as good as you can if the old ring is gone take your parts into a small engine shop your local small engine dealer and just tell them you need a new o-ring for that and they should be able to set you up with that so put that all back together again and screw that in tighten it up and now you know that this little outlet coupler is clear you know that your tip is clear when you put your garden hose on and pull that trigger you should see water coming out now so if there's water coming out you start your engine up yes there's water coming out but it's just low pressure you don't have a blockage anywhere now we just verified that that the two most common reasons that you have low pressure that come across my batch I see in a given year I'm gonna see this right here customer Brinson in says hey might look my pressure washer doesn't have any pressure anymore and you look down at their wand and there's not even a nozzle in that I can see however somebody would make that mistake it looks like there's something on the end of that lawn they don't people don't know is that the nozzle what did what is that you pull the trigger on that and it looks like this it's just water just spraying out at the end like that something this spring is just coming out a garden hose pressure that is extremely common that people bring that in there there's not even a nozzle in it so make sure you have a nozzle in it make sure you can see through it clear nozzles put a nozzle in did that fix your problem it's gonna fix somebody's problem out there cuz I see this come across my badge all the time the other reason that I see that's very common everybody's got their little assort assortment of of nozzles they're color coded you have your red one is a is a straight nozzle some people call this a laser nozzle it there's no fan to it at all it's just straight water comes out that's your red one then you go to your yellow one that's a 15-degree fan it's very narrow fan fifteen degrees you go to your green one that's a 25 degree fan it's a little bigger you go to your white one that's a 40 degree fan a big wide fan like that and then everybody's gonna have the black tip the block tip one that is your soap injector nozzle it's got a huge hole through the center of that thing look at the difference between that and that one that's a big difference between their this the soap injector tip the black one is made on purpose to have low pressure so again people bring the pressure washer in to me and say this thing has low pressure and they have the nozzle in their own right but you look down and it's a black one and you go is that the one you were just trying it with and they say well yeah that's the wrong tip that is supposed to have low pressure in it for soap injecting or chemical injecting so make sure you have the proper tip in it that's gonna solve some of your problems right there make sure you proper tips in there try it you got pressure again boom just solved the problem here's another one these tips a lot of people don't realize these little nozzle tips actually wear out it's a tiny little hole in there and you have extremely high pressure water coming through that hole most people have a favorite tip that they use all the time water is coming out of there all the time at high pressure it wears that tip out the hole gets bigger and bigger and bigger and you're losing pressure all the time as that's wearing out easy way to check that is that everybody's got one tip that they never use most of them most people never use that red tip that straight tip pick the one that you never use or use the least amount simply just tape that nozzle because you know what's gonna be in good shape plug that into your into your wand and try it again well you might actually go wow this thing's got way better pressure now if that's the case you know that that one that you use all the time is just simply worn out go get another tip any small engine shop should have these tips these replaceable tips for you another super easy check that you can do this comes across my batch all the time to people save my pressure washer has no pressure anymore it's got low pressure you take it outside and test it that's what I do every time I just because I don't want to see what it's doing see if it is something simple I do all those checks we just checked I take it outside fired up yeah that's got low pressure and I grab that red knob right there most of these horizontal type pumps these vertical pumps themselves don't have this but the horizontal pumps do most of them are a red knob this red knob is your unloader knob it's made for adjusting your pressure how many times have I grabbed that and went but and I'm turning it in and turning it in and turning it in and the pressures coming up and coming up and coming up the person just didn't realize that that's what that red knob is for they had it unscrewed almost all the way they had it set to low pressure on purpose because that's what that red knob for make sure that that red knob summer block most of my red but turn that in all the way make sure it's set to be at high pressure so there's some simple checks for you right there if none of that fixed your problem there is one other thing that you can check check this last because it's it's not that common but I'm gonna show you this anyway I think this might be because of the climate I live in to be honest with you I live in a damp climate I live on Vancouver Island so some some of you out there that live in drier drier climates may never see this but I see this quite often underneath this red knob when you're turning that red knob in to tighten your unloader up it's it's compressing a really tight spring spring looks like this right here you pull that out it's a really stiff spring I can't even compress that with my thumb's I toast if these things are sometimes they get rusted and break just like this one right here look at this one this is so badly rusted it's completely obliterated it's smashed to pieces so when you turn that red knob all the way down it's supposed to be compressing a nice tight spring it can't possibly be compressing a a broken spring so it's not gonna increase your pressure as you're turning that in sometimes that's your problem right there again take your parts into a small Indian shop and say here you know what I just need a new spring for this unloader they'll be able to set you up and get you a new spring and I'll bet you if your spring looks like that that's all you need to do change that spring turn that knob down all the way now it's compressing your unloader like it's supposed to be you're gonna have pressure again so there you go guys I hope that some of these tips and tricks that I showed you today helped you out maybe saved you some money I know it helps somebody out because this kind of stuff comes across my bench on such a regular basis so if you liked it give me that thumbs up button hit that like button subscribe to my channel if you already haven't till the next video guys what can I say cheers from Canada Steve out

Channel: Steve's Small Engine Saloon

Views: 1,118,699

Keywords: chain, saw, weed, eater, trimmer, grass, install, blade, bar, properly, tips, tricks, efficiently, google, stihl, husqvarna, husky, echo, honda, shindiawa, pressure, washer, hand, held, wont, start, dull, not, direction, diagnose, save, money, tech, clogged, bogging, idle, up, weedeater, outdoor, power, equipment, leaf blower, lawnmower, How To Fix a Pressure Washer That Has Low Pressure?, pump, nozzles

Id: rxdrJcptoGc

Length: 14min 26sec (866 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 19 2017