Ok, I winterized last year by using a short hose, putting in some RV antifreeze and pulling the engine cord. After several pulls, the antifreeze leaked out where it should. Couldn’t have been easier.
This year, the antifreeze is apparently not going into the pump. I pull the cord many times and nothing comes out where it should. I lower the hose to drain it and it all comes back out into my bucket.
The PW was in my garage and its been pretty cold (not quite freezing, I think one night did get below about a week ago) so I ran the engine for 5 minutes to warm everything up and tried again, but still nothing.
Anyone have any ideas? Maybe there is ice and I didn’t run it long enough? Maybe something else could be stuck?
Just looking for ideas and to rule out that I’m doing something stupid (very possible).
Run your machine like you are about to wash something: hook it up to a hose, run water, turn it on, spray for a little bit, then try your winterizing technique. This worked for us in the past before we got a different system.
Not yet, haven’t had a chance to try, planning to do it Saturday morning. Thanks for the suggestion, I’ll let you know either way if it does the trick.
I thought about that but didn’t know if it would just suck all the antifreeze through too fast and then out and wouldn’t do the job (i.e. would it not leave enough in the actual pump?). I’ve only winterized once and it went smoothly just pulling the cord a few times, so this issue is new to me. Would I need to put a hose on after the unloader, or just leave it off and as soon as I see the antifreeze come out, shut the engine down?
I would leave a whip line on your unloader so you can catch what comes out so you can reuse it. Don’t forget about your hoses. I usually just unhook mine at the reel and blow it out with air.
We winterize everytime its freeze s, then de winterize to go back to work when its above freezing. We did it probably 20 or so times last year, 5 times this year so far.
We start our machines up and suck antifreeze through the water inlet , then watch until we see antifreeze come out of our hose, then shut off .
To de winterize, We turn our water supply back on via a valve at the buffer then start machines up at low rpm if you can, then simply squirt the antifreeze back into a 5 gallon bucket via your PW hose until you see the green go away for the next use.
If you do it this way ,its 100% winterized. We use 100% automotive antifreeze with rust inhibitors, mixed at 50/50.
