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OT: Craftsman Strikes again! Pressure washer woes

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Shop Supply Guru

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Ohio USA
I looked up in the archive and I posted last year in June a complaint about the new craftsman cordless impact driver that my father in law got that fell apart before a single use. His 1/4” hex quick change obviously wasn’t assembled correctly and fell apart during the initial load..... long story short he returned that and bought a Dewalt and never looked back.

That said the Craftsman quality has struck again! He bought a gas powered pressure washer last year. Briggs and Stratton “ easy start”. This model https://www.lowes.com/pd/CRAFTSMAN-...r-with-Briggs-Stratton-Engine-CARB/1000730676.

Taste aside He’s good at caring for his tools. He went through the whole winterization process as suggested.

Cut to me borrowing the thing to clean off my deck. We go to start it for the first time since last season. Nothing. Go through the whole drill troubleshooting it etc. it’s obviously not getting fuel. We use starting fluid. It literally starts for a crank turn then nothing. Repeat this a dozen times with carb cleaner and so forth and so on. Same result.

Look closer..... the carburetor is a piece of plastic. My thoughts are the very little fuel that was still in the line ate up the plastic and blocked it. You wrench turners might have more insight or ideas but I was pretty upset that THE CARBURETOR WAS PLASTIC!

you may now begin your advice / rants against new Crafstman products.
 
Apparently Sears and Craftsman and other products sold by them are on the way out. Kenmore is another example. We foolishly bought a Kenmore washing machine some five or six years ago. It was touted as a "water-saver". It sure does save water. It's all we can do to get it to rinse after a wash. That's the good part. It's so slow that you will fall asleep waiting for it to finish a load.

It's sad to see Sears go, but they, like Montgomery Ward, J.C. Penney and other once famous and trusted brands are now just a memory.

Ramble on! :rolleyes5:
 
OK, my pressure washer experience was that mist flows back over pressure washer, gets drawn into the fuel tank and air intake. Then, shut down and wait 9 months before trying again.

Carb is gummed up and pressure washer doesn't start. Get frustrated, pay $100 to fix, get angry, be careful to avoid mist flowing back over washer ever again, pressure washer continues to work.
 
The plastic carb is, in some ways, 10x BETTER than the metal ones. NOT all ways.....

Some friends GAVE us a "Yard Machines" mower with a plastic carb. They could not start it, and got a battery mower rather than screw around with it.

Yep, as usual, they left it full of gas over winter. So, take off the carb, open up the bowl, get rid of the "liquid" in the carb (and tank). Yeah the jets are probably gunked up, so I take a good look, and discover that I can get out my jackknife and pop out the jets. I do that... the jet is in two pieces, so I pop it apart also, get a piece of wire, and poke the pinkish crystals out of the jets, clean them up, snap them together, and back in place.

After carb is put back, and new gas put in, it starts on first pull. 5 minute job, easier than any other carb I ever had to clear. The translucent nylon type plastic jets allowed seeing the blockage easily.

So, don't knock the plastic carb too much. They probably won't last as well, but they have their advantages.
 
Briggs has been using plastic carbs for over a decade now, so I can't really blame Craftsman for this one. I think its BS and I greatly prefer the old 9200-series "Pulsa-Jet" carbs.
 
I would be willing to bet you're using gasoline with ethanol in it. Ethanol is extremely hard on small engine fuel lines and carburetors. I have over 2 dozen pieces of equipment with small engines. Engine brands include B&S, Kohler, Honda, Toro, Stihl, Echo, and even a couple Tecumseh's. None of them like ethanol. It gums up carburetors, rots fuel lines, and leaves a mess in the fuel tanks.

When ethanol gas first came out I was changing fuel lines and rebuilding carbs on an annual basis. It was so hard on fuel lines that I was buying it by the 50 foot spool.

When no ethanol premium came to our area I switched immediately. Since then there have been no carb rebuilds and almost no fuel line changeouts in over 10 years
 
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