Bit of a change

I bought a pressure washer recently for a tenner. Built by Flexian in the early 1980's, it is powered by a 250cc Honda 6.5 hp engine. This drives a four piston pump delivering something in the order of 2,500PSI.

The engine had no compression and had obviously been stood about for a l-o-n-g time.The way it huffed made me think there was a (side) valve stuck open.

Four bolts detached it from its trolley & it was soon cleaned with Gunk (not the stuff of my youth, unfortunately ;o(( ) and the petrol tank, shrouds, recoil starter, carb, exhaust, head and tappet cover were soon off. The exhaust valve was stuck open but quickly succummed to a bit of poking, prodding and lubrication. I was surprised to find that both valves seated properly & didn't allow any of the Plus Gas I dropped on their little heads to leak through the seats. The cylinder bore was a fine, dull grey, used but obviously OK. I decided to leave well enough alone, Hylomared the intact fibre head gasket & rebuilt the engine.

The Keihin carb was stripped & cleaned & found to be minus its float needle, but a quick look in my old bike carb junk box turned up an identical valve in a Honda CB175 carb, so it wasn't the problem it could have been.

I stripped the tank & cleaned out the ancient residue of petrol from inside using my favourite method of a (counted) handful of nuts & bolts & a pint of paraffin. It was a manky, rusty mess inside & out, so I whipped the remaining paint off the tank, primered it & found one of my tins of spray paint (I bought fifty odd for £20 from a motor factor a while ago) matched the Honda colour very well. Whilst I was at it, I did a rough paint job on the fan covers which were poor but not that desperate, finding a good match for the red in my box, too!

The engine was brass wire cup brushed & lacquered & the whole assembled. And very nice it looks too.

Of course, it didn't start straight off. Someone had "readjusted" the float height & the carb wouldn't fill, but that was readily solved & away it went.

Takes a lot longer to do than write, dunnit?

The pump is a beast of a thing, the pistons being operated by a "crankshaft" of eccentrics that push their pistons into rubber diaphragms. I look forward to seeing if it needs stripping down ..........

Regards,

Kim Siddorn

Reply to
Kim Siddorn
Loading thread data ...

Kim,

My brother has one, be careful it strips paint its that good.

Reply to
campingstoveman

PolyTech Forum website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.