Four or five yrs ago I picked up a Harbor Freight parts washer, the 20gal flavor. A few weeks after the warrantee expired, the pump went south on it. It came with a warning to use water based solvents only, but who among us ever pays any attention to warnings? 
I use kerosene, so perhaps their warning has merit after all? Dunno. It wasn't that big a deal when it quit, I just kept a little cup in the tank to rinse stuff off with. Still, there's been times when a pump would come in right handy.
A replacement pump was out of the question, as I suspect it would only suffer the same fate. Not to mention they have gold embedded in 'em somewhere. Not wanting to pay a kings ransom, I settled for an automotive fuel pump.... the low pressure flavor for carbureted engines. That means I need 12V to power it, so here's how it went together. Sorry, no before pics...
The original pump resided in the box that sits inside the tank, an immersion pump. This fuel pump isn't, it want's to stay dry. So I removed the dead pump and ran fuel lines into the box. One line for the pickup, with a filter on the end (easily replaceable too) and the other line to the sprayer.
Removed the switch from the little cover on the outside and ran the lines out of it down to the pump, which I mounted on one of the tank legs.
All plumbed in and ready to rock and roll....
So far, that brings us up to $21 for the pump and $5 in 3/8" fuel line.
Scrounged around and found a 12V power supply. It was the one I bought for rotor testing while I was tooling up for rewinds. It did it's job, then sat for 5yrs, so we won't count that expenditure. Also scrounged up a box for the power supply, it's way too big for what it is, but it was on hand. It's kicked around the garage for so long I forgot what I actually bought it for, so we're not counting it either. And in a stroke of luck, I'd previously deposited an ON/OFF toggle switch inside it... so still not counting. Here's the box with all the guts installed.
My Brother made the PARTS WASHER placard for me. Mounted the box next to an outlet and spliced the DC side of it into the pump.
Still need to clamp the pump wires so they don't get pulled out, but other than that, it's done and functional.
Having not used the old pump in years, it's hard to compare, but I'm guessin' about the same flow... maybe slightly less, but that's much preferable to too much flow where it splashes everywhere. And being as how an automotive pump is a pulse pump, vs. the continuous flow one that was in there, I get 8 to 10 "jets" of spray per second. That looks to be handy for knocking off some of the sludge/crap normally associated with dirty motorcycle bits.
So the total is $26 for a new pump in the parts washer. I'm a happy camper.
I use kerosene, so perhaps their warning has merit after all? Dunno. It wasn't that big a deal when it quit, I just kept a little cup in the tank to rinse stuff off with. Still, there's been times when a pump would come in right handy.
A replacement pump was out of the question, as I suspect it would only suffer the same fate. Not to mention they have gold embedded in 'em somewhere. Not wanting to pay a kings ransom, I settled for an automotive fuel pump.... the low pressure flavor for carbureted engines. That means I need 12V to power it, so here's how it went together. Sorry, no before pics...
The original pump resided in the box that sits inside the tank, an immersion pump. This fuel pump isn't, it want's to stay dry. So I removed the dead pump and ran fuel lines into the box. One line for the pickup, with a filter on the end (easily replaceable too) and the other line to the sprayer.
Removed the switch from the little cover on the outside and ran the lines out of it down to the pump, which I mounted on one of the tank legs.
All plumbed in and ready to rock and roll....
So far, that brings us up to $21 for the pump and $5 in 3/8" fuel line.
Scrounged around and found a 12V power supply. It was the one I bought for rotor testing while I was tooling up for rewinds. It did it's job, then sat for 5yrs, so we won't count that expenditure. Also scrounged up a box for the power supply, it's way too big for what it is, but it was on hand. It's kicked around the garage for so long I forgot what I actually bought it for, so we're not counting it either. And in a stroke of luck, I'd previously deposited an ON/OFF toggle switch inside it... so still not counting. Here's the box with all the guts installed.
My Brother made the PARTS WASHER placard for me. Mounted the box next to an outlet and spliced the DC side of it into the pump.
Still need to clamp the pump wires so they don't get pulled out, but other than that, it's done and functional.
Having not used the old pump in years, it's hard to compare, but I'm guessin' about the same flow... maybe slightly less, but that's much preferable to too much flow where it splashes everywhere. And being as how an automotive pump is a pulse pump, vs. the continuous flow one that was in there, I get 8 to 10 "jets" of spray per second. That looks to be handy for knocking off some of the sludge/crap normally associated with dirty motorcycle bits.
So the total is $26 for a new pump in the parts washer. I'm a happy camper.
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