My 1988 shaft drive has a Hawk pump, the only thing that has ever gone wrong is one barrel cracked when we didn't heat during some freezing weather. A used barrel was installed (Got from shaft drive maker) and no problem since. I have used and rebuilt Cat, Hypro, Hydra Cell's all with good results. I had an inline wire mesh strainer create problems once. It was mounted before the pump. Our Hypro pump on our SW power Matic went through about 12-14 rebuilds before we found the problem. The wire mesh seperated in small pieces and kept lodging in the pump and stoped the pressure from being able to build. This was a real head scratcher for both Henry K at steamway and me, in Alaska
Cat in my BlueLine... A new one to look at is made by Arimitsu of North America, maker of the finest pumps for the carwash and industrial pressure washing industries.
I think mine has a cat pump, but if you wanna talk pumps what about the water supply pump, for filling the water box. Thats the one that goes! Flojets are way too expensive, I was quoted 600 bucks to replace one so i pick up a shur flo at the RV dealer whenever I have pump issues for about 120 bucks. They last about six months. The Flojet lasted about 2 years.
General Emperor Pump with... Teflon Plunger Seals and ... Hi-temp check valves. None more durable, and built by the accepted leader in Pressure Washing Pumps Worldwide. Larry P.S. Over the years, we have used Cat, Hypro, Mercury, and PumpTec for comparison.
I've built systems with Cat, General, Interpump (same as general) and Hypro. I prefer Cat, because they're durable, require less space (they're smaller as a rule), and clutches are readily available for them. The systems I built ("PowerPak") with General / Interpump were very satisfactory as well.
ProChem tested Cat against General Emperor... Now, they are using General Emperor on their new models. Larry
My Boxxer 421 uses a Comet pump and it has been very reliable. I have no way of knowing how good it is compared to other pumps except Hypro, but it has worked very well for me. It is probably one third the cost of a Cat at some dealers. For the price it is hard to beat.
I use to have the same problem especially with the demand pumps. They just could not take the constant hammering(on-off) without some type of bladder system or air tank to absorb the shock. So I switched to a pump with a internal bypass built into the pump, it runs all the time. I believe both surflo and flojet make one. They last twice as long for me.
