honda pressure washer trouble

electricman

I was using my pressure washer cleaning a walk. A half hour later I pulled it up 4 steps onto my deck, while it was running. White smoke poured out the exhaust. I shut it right down. I tried to start it once, 5 minutes later. No luck. I then checked the oil. As soon as I opened the oil fill cover, oil started to pour out. It seams like gas or mayby water got in the oil. When I pulled it up the steps,it was running and on a 45 degrees angle. Any help. Thankyou,electricman

DexterII

Sounds like the oil needs to be changed regardless, so I would do that, and try it again; it could very well have an oil level switch on it.

electricman

Thankyou

ukrkoz

sounds like you hydrolocked your engine. water got inside combustion chamber. water does not compress and prevents piston from moving up into combustion chamber, effectively shutting down engine. on pass cars, or any larger gas engine, this may result in major engine block/tie rod damage.

__________________

electricman

thankyou

ukrkoz

you are welcome. i'd start with drying out air filter and pulling spark plug out. then, give it a few kicks with cord. watch spark plug hole. is there any water spewed out? if so, you did hybdrolock it, and must disassemble the engine to clean it all and assess for any damage. hydrolocking can be brutal. if not, maybe you simply spilled some water on hot exhaust, and it LOOKED LIKE steam came out of exhaust. in this case, filter could have gotten wet. but then again, if your oil foamed out, you most likely have some major gasket blown, that let water under pressure into any place it was not supposed to go.
you prolly know this, but while engine is working, water flow through the gun should be never stopped, or internal damage may occur. i pressure washed for 2 days this weekend, so yes, well familiar.

__________________

Marty1Mc

I doubt you hydro-locked your motor unless you got spray into the intake. The pump is usually a completely separate entity. The motor turns a shaft on the pump. There is no way for the water to enter the motor. I haven't seen a water cooled motor on any power washer for home use.

But, setting it at an angle is a bad idea all around. These motors have no oil pump and need to sit flush. I suspect you may have had your oil level too high and sitting it at an angle, oil was able to push past the rings on the piston and hence the white smoke.

Do as ukrkoz suggested and pull the plug and then turn over the motor and look for whatever comes out, if anything. Clean the plug with brake clean/carb cleaner, wire brush it and you should be able to re-use it.

I had the same thing happen with a BS motor many years ago. It was on a brand new snapper mower and I had too much oil in it. It ran fine for about 10 min the a huge puff of white-ish smoke came out. I corrected the oil level, cleaned the plug and restarted. It puffed smoke for quite a while, but cleared up. I had the mower for 10 yrs after that with no problems.