Outdoor Power Equipment and Small Engines - Honda GX160 intermittent dying

I have an old pressure washer with a Honda GX160 engine (serial GC02-3264464). It starts easy and runs strong but when fully hot and operating under load the engine sometimes dies. It will run for several minutes under load and die as if the ignition is killed. If I quickly release the pressure wand so the engine is not under load it will pick back up and continue running. If I keep the load on the engine it will die. I can restart the engine and it will run for 2-20 minutes before dying again and sometimes it tries to die every 1-2 minutes. Very intermittent and unpredictable.

It has fuel. The oil level is full. This engine has the old two wire oil level sensor and no oil alert diode assembly.

Any suggestions as to the problem?
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I have not had the engine die when the ground for the on/off switch and oil level sensor is disconnected, but the problem is so unpredictably intermittent that I cannot be sure if that is the problem area.

I've had the kill switch itself cause this problem on GX hondas before. The fact that it's intermittent can make it hard to diagnose, but take a look at the switch and see if it's loose or in bad shape.

Thanks Cheese (our resident Honda expert).

I'll take the unit home and clean some things around the house with the switch disconnected and see if that clears up the problem.

Thanks again.

Let us know what you find! It seems to me that when the switch causes a problem like that, it is usually also loose and doesn't have a definative click from "on" to "off". Have also seen the kill wire to the coil pinched under the shroud causing intermittent shorts to ground...symptoms like you describe.