Rigid Pressure Washer Problems

[CJM8515]

Have had this washer for about 5 years now, never gave me an ounce of trouble till today. It has a 6hp subaru motor and cat pump if I recall.

I started it up, runs ok. Water is connected and turned on. Its running about 2 mins and I go to spray the wand, bogs down shuts off. I start it back up again, does same thing, go to pull it again and its hard to pull??

Remove plug, check for water or gas or whatever in cylinder, nothing comes out and easy to pull. Start it up again, hard to pull.. Check oil, oils fine.. Finally get it started and just sitting there running it sounds like **** and a little overflow spigot on the end of the front of the pump begins to spew water out like nuts.

Pumps bad?

 

[CJM8515]

Anyone?

 

[mrpizza]

Take the unloader valve apart and clean it. That would be my first place to check.

 

[stratman977]

I have the same one and got it around the same time. I bought mine and I noticed they changed the pump design a few months after I got it.

Mine makes a grinding sound until it warms up. I always assumed the pump on mine is a pos and they changed the design cause they were coming back under warranty.

You could always take the pump off and see if the motor runs.

 

[beamrider]

I usually leave the wand off and let water run freely, until all the air bleeds out. Then on the Ridgid I have, sometimes you have to have the gun connected, and be squeezing the trigger, in order to be able to pull the starter cord, otherwise , you'll rip your arm off. Is yours the one with the "idle down technology?", with the blue Cat pump? If so, check the oil level in the pump, it didnt dawn on me to do that until it was running like ****. CHanged the oil, and now runs better than new.

 

[js289]

clean the carb. check oil in pump

 

[redwrench60]

Take the unloader valve apart and clean it. That would be my first place to check.

Exactly right. The pump unloader valve is stuck in the valve block most likely from dried up soap crud.

The problem isn't in the engine

 

[CJM8515]

Yea I took the pump off (3 bolts wow!) and engine runs great. Gonna try playing with the pump a bit more, did remove 3 bolts on it that were somewhat cruddy. Worst case I found northern tools has a very similar pump for about 120.

When I started it again it ran fine until I turned the hose on, once that happened shut right off.