If it was running fine before you cleaned it but could not get the pilot out I would suspect you washed some foreign material into the little holes of the pilot circuit. Pull out the pilot and make sure its clean in all the small holes. then make sure that circuit and the air screw are clean. Give everything a once over again and put it back together.....i
When you cleaned it the first time did you make any adjustments to the air screw. Did you ever remove it to clean it behind it---if not, that could be a problem, if you did remove i,t did you note how it was adjusted (number of turns backed out from lightly seated) and set it back to where it was..just my .02 but I am by no means a carb tuning guru.