Build Log: Pressure washer cart rebuild
I nabbed a super-sale pressure washer nearly ten years ago and it’s been pretty good to me: it has enough power to clean the things I need to clean without being too loud or obnoxious to use. Since the beginning though, my complaint has been the exceptionally clunky cart that it came with. I finally got around to the pressure washer out of it’s stock frame and building something a bit more custom for it.
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Where we started
I bought a Ryobi pressure washer (Model #RY141900, discontinued now) in 2015 when I saw it on sale for $40 new. Ever since opening it up, there were a few things that bothered me:
The hose reel is just a means to store the hose — you had to fully remove the hose from the wheel to use it
The soap dispenser never really worked that great
The way the lance holder was setup, the lance added to the effective footprint of the pressure washer…
When I talk about the ‘effective footptint’, I mean that, when you look at the pressure washer at glance, you get a mental picture of roughly how much space it occupies (or rather, 'how much you expect it to occupy’). But then now try squeezing the pressure washer out of a tightly packed shed and you’ll find that things like the lance, or the wheels that stick past the frame catch onto every little thing.
Also, the entire design of the pressure washer cart is built around pulling — which works great as you pull the pressure washer from the shed, across the lawn, to the driveway.
But what about in the shed? If you want to tuck the awkwardly shaped pressure washer into an awkwardly shaped gap between tires, outdoor power equiment and bins of landscaping supplies? That (generally) requires pushing the power washer. And if your shed is a disaster, you’re going to be trying to push the cart while outstretched. Aggravating to say the least.
But for the price I paid, clearly, I can forgive a lot.
My Ryobi pressure washer.
Goals and Objectives
I recently bought a short swivel pressure washer gun and compared to the medium lance the pressure washer orignally came with, this has totally opened my eyes to a better ergonomic experience. This was the kick in the pants I needed. The three biggest things I wanted to address:
Make the cart more maneuverable, more push-friendly — even at the cost of making it a pain to pull across the lawn
When you look at it and get that mental snapshot of how much volume the cart occupies: that’s roughly how much volume it occupies — no random things jutting out
Fix the stupid hose reel situatin: the pressure washer hose should just be permanently plumbed in
I originally set out with the idea of storing the pressure washer in the shed as I did before, I was open to keeping it in the shop if the maneuverability was improved enough.
Rough Design
When I started this project, I didn’t really have a rough design in mind — I was just playing around with whatever scrap materials I had on hand. The only two things I knew for sure was having a mounted hose reel and switching to four castors.
Step 1 - Mounting in a custom frame
At this phase, I wanted to get the pressure washer and the reel mounted as a singular object. I hadn’t put any wheeels on it yet but I mentally planned on having the castors mounted for the vertical/storage orientation. The thinking was the vibration from the pump running might cause the cart (on wheels) to runaway.
Step 2 - Test run, adding wheels
Here, I put some wheels on the cart (vertical mode) and everything behaved roughly as I expected it would: horizontal mode was super stable and vertical mode was sort of tippy but managable, without introducing additional footprint (from castor wheels spinning beyond the perimeter).
Step 3 - Swapping the wheels
Ultimately, I didn’t like the tippy nature of the wheels in the vertical configuration — it wasn’t worth risking tipover; and the option of extending the wheelbase would change footprint in horizontal-mode. I opted to try putting the wheels on the horizontal-orientation just to see if vibration would be a problem.
Step 4 - Finishing touches
The bones of the pressure washer ‘rebuild’ is complete and I wanted to tackle the [power] cord management by making use of the original cord-wrap. I then had the crazy idea of making a gun holster so that I could disconnect the gun during storage so it woulnd’t be dangling around as a weight at the end of a hose.
Milestone
This project has mostly been a success, I set out to reduce the effective footprint and make everything so much more usable and I think I nailed it. The pressure hose reel makes everything so much nicer to use. It is less maneuverable on grass (as you would expect) but thankfully, I had a sidewalk that runs down the side of my house to the back so it’s a very minor inconvenience - the compact footprint means that I keep this in the shop now so I don’t have to lug it across the lawn.
Appendix
I used a bunch of quick connect fittings (both for the pressure and garden-hose sides). For the garden hose side, I used some cheapo fittings that happened to be a perfect fit with my existing Yardworks set. For the pressure side, I ended up walking into a Peavey Mart and Princess Auto with the parts in question and spent half an hour figuring out what lego-combination of parts I needed to tie everything together.
Powerfist Pressure washer reel. This is just a cheapo wheel that allows me to skip having to plug the pressure washer hose into the pressure washer each time. Also super handy to wind up the hose when I’m done
McKillan’s Short pressure washer gun with swivel. Coming from the stock Ryobi medium-lance, this is a joy to use — less hand fatigue, better control and doesn’t get in the way all the damn time
4ft Pressure washer whop with swivel. This lets me connect the reel to the pressure washer directly. Depending on what connectors you have where (quick connects, threaded connections, male vs female, etc.) you’ll have to find what works for you
50ft Uberflex and 25ft Flexzilla hoses. Generally 50ft is enough for me to do everything I need so I don’t usually connect extra 25ft. Both are fantastic hoses and feature the same anti-kink construction
Universal garden-hose swivel. This allows me to ease the entry angle for the garden hose feeding the pressure washer. In this application, I think the all-plastic build should be fine, but if you want a bit more peace of mind, you can get one with an with an all metal contruction
6-in-1 pressure tip, this is just a cheapo on that has worked okay for me
Measureman pressure washer gauge. Totally unnecessary, but cool to see the data
Bed armor paint. I used this as it was available, but I’m not convinced it’s particularly tough — however, in my application, it may be sufficient.
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