Gas pressure washers can stop working due to many reasons, the most common reason is most cases is a clogged-up carburetor. If the carburetor has gas sitting in it for a long period of time, the carburetor gets clogged up which causes your pressure washer so stop working.
How To Clean Carburetor On Pressure Washer
If you have the same problem with your best gas powered pressure washer, don’t worry. In this article we will teach you how to clean carburetor on pressure washer.
What is a Carburetor?
Before we show you how to clean your pressure washer carburetor, first, you need to know about a carburetor.
Gas powered pressure washers needs the right amount of air to burn the fuel and work properly. For your gas pressure washer to work perfectly, the air to gas ratio must be between 12:1 and 15:1. To maintain this ration, your pressure washer has a carburetor.
The carburetor performs the balancing between the air and the gas and make sure the ratio is right. In case the carburetor gets clogged up it cannot put the right mix of the air and gas, this results in a malfunctioned pressure washer.
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Symptoms of a faulty or clogged up carburetor
As we mentioned earlier, your pressure washer can stop working due to many reasons. In case the problem is due to a clogged up carburetor, you will experience the following changes in your pressure washer.
- Your pressure washer will make popping or sneezing sound.
- There might be black smoke emitting from your pressure washer.
- If you carburetor is clogged, it will leak.
Above were some of the symptoms of a clogged up carburetor. If your pressure washer is not working due to a clogged up carburetor, you will most likely see these symptoms.
How a carburetor gets clogged up?
If you have experienced the mentioned changes in your pressure washer, it is confirmed that the carburetor is clogged up. Now you might be wondering, how it got dirty in the first place and what measures can you take in future to avoid this problem from happening again.
Answer to your question is that your pressure washer gets clogged up because it has fuel sitting in it for a long period of time. So to avoid this problem from happening again you need to either drain the fuel from your pressure washer or run your pressure washer for 15-20 minutes every once in a while.
Here Are Some Best Pressure Washer Carburetors
We have mentioned some of the best pressure washer carburetors that you can get for your pressure washer in a very reasonable price.
[amazon table=”1817″]How to clean carburetor of your gas powered pressure washer?
Below are the most simple and straightforward steps you can take to clean your pressure washer carburetor.
- First, you need to remove the spark plug cap and shut off the fuel valve
- Read your pressure washer manual and locate the carburetor, in most models, you will need to remove the air filter box, the throttle cover and the intake setup to get to the carburetor.
- Now you will need to empty the carburetor from old gas. You can do so by locating the gas line connecting the fuel can and carburetor and disconnect it by unplugging the tube from the carburetor nipple. Drain the old gas into a bucket.
- Unscrew the two bolts that connects the carburetor to the engine and remove the carburetor. You can use a socket or a nut driver for unscrewing. Disengage the throttle cable from the carburetor.
- After draining the old gas, check the carburetor is it’s corroded or just dirty. If it’s corroded, you will need a new carburetor, if it’s dirty, you will need to clean it.
- Now you need to take apart the carburetor and remove the carb bowl by unscrewing it. Removing the carb bowl will expose the float. Disconnect the float from the metal body by taking out the pin and then pull off the needle valve. If the tip of the needle wall is made of rubber, don’t use the crab cleaner with it.
- Remove the gasket on the rim, it is somewhere around the seal between the mouth of the crab wall and the main body.
- Clean all the metal part and rubber parts from any kind of unwanted liquid or gummy residues. If there is liquid, clean it with a clean cloths. Inspect and clean the idle jets with a small wire brush.
- Soak the metal parts in the carburetor cleaner and let them soak for an hour, after that, rinse them in water and blow dry them with compressed air.
- Put the pin, the floater, the needle valve, gasket and the carb bowl in their original position.
- Reconnect the carburetor to the main engine and replace everything.
- Test run your pressure washer to make sure everything is up and running perfectly.
Final Verdict
So above was everything you needed to know about cleaning the carburetor of your pressure washer. We hope you have carefully read and followed the steps we mentioned and we wish you the best of luck in cleaning your pressure washer carburetor. If in case, you still have a faulty pressure washer, we would highly recommend you to go the nearest pressure washer expert and let the professionals do their work.