Wednesday 4 April 2018

Fixing a Pressure Washer

Flushed with success after fixing my cheapo drill I turned my attention to my jet washer.



This time it’s a quality German product - a Kärcher 475. I think that a jet washer is essential if you're going to ride a bike through the Scottish winter. It's great for blasting off dirt and road salt. I bought mine a long time ago but recently its lost its mojo. It was just about ok for cleaning the bike but when I tried to clean the patio I realised that its pressure was well down. The gauge showed 40 bar instead of the usual 90 bar.

The gauge told me something was wrong
A pressure washer is just an electrical motor at one end and a pump at the other. The motor seemed to be running ok so I though I'd take a look at the pump. Now I don't really know how this works but, hey, that never stopped me before.


I didn't need to open up the electrics but when I did there was a wiring diagram inside. Nice.

This sticker shows that the machine was made in 1990, so it has given me a lot of years of service. It also tells me that cos φ, the power factor, is 0.95….those Germans!

These pistons go in and out….

…into these pump units.


The pump outputs. There's something funny going on…..a broken O ring is jamming one valve open.


O ring
It wasn't obvious where the O ring came from. There didn't seem any way to further disassemble things so I cleaned it up and put it back together. And it worked fine. Back to 90 bar.

Back to its patio cleaning best!
So where did the O ring come from? Because the washer is now working fine I didn't think it came from inside. Looking about I found a self closing connection of a type I used in the past and that has an O ring that looks similar. The washer is suppose to have a mesh filter on the inlet but I removed this for some reason years ago. So mea culpa (as usual)

Now where did I put that filter?......



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28 comments:

  1. Trobairitz5 April 2018 at 06:04

    You are just fixing things all over the place. Good job. A pressure washer is a must here too. Cleaning bikes, gutters, patio and driveways, siding, and even moss off the roof.

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  2. fj_stuart5 April 2018 at 07:21

    I've got the time because of some horrible weather here (it snowed all day yesterday!) Double figures C this weekend the weatherman says.

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