What is the safest way to drain petrol from a car?
Machine mart sell fuel transfer pumps but these are for diesel type fuels only.
I'm not particularly keen on the sucking on a rubber hose technique !
There must be companies who sell pumps to do this job.
Any ideas apprieciated.
Steve
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What car you got?
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groups.msn.com/honestjohn - Pictures say a thousand words.....
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You can buy wider bore clear pipe from aquatic shops for syphoning aquariums, you should be ok sucking this, as you can see it coming, just have a glass of lemon juice and soda water ready just in case, this'll clean your mouth out if it gets petrol in it.
If you still don't want to suck, you could perhaps use a funnel to prefil the pipe and quickly drop it down to syphon level before the pipe drains.
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any fish tank siphon will have an attachment on it to do the sucking bit for you, although i'm not entirely sure how you would operate that bit as its that end that's in the tank!
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drained for removal ?
In which case pull the pipe from the bottom and put your own, longer, pipe out to a can.
Not really messy if you do it quickly and have everything to hand. At least the tank will be as drained as you can get it in situ. Although be aware that not only will this not remove every bit of petrol, the fumes are more dangerous than the liquid.
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I will be draining petrol from lots of cars daily.I work for a garage that has lots of Part ex's which go breakers yards/auction. The idea is to drain the fuel from these cars into our demo's e.t.c (i.e reduce our fuel bill). Most Part ex's have fuel in them (some nearly full). I reckon we could save £500 per month.
I'm sure most leasing companies do this before sending thier cars to auction. 99% of lease cars at auction have their fuel warning lights on.
I need a method that is safe,quick and easy to use.
Steve
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If you are draining this much, you really need a purpose made fuel retriever
Try
www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg331.pdf
www.hse.gov.uk/lau/lacs/57-3.htm
Static can be a problem.
Personally, I like the taste of a suitably chambred unleaded. Belching petrol for an hour afterward was part of my youth. Mind you, so was rationing
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A lot of cars these days incorperate some kind of anti syphoning device within the filler pipe to stop oik's and the like from poking hose pipes down them and helping themselves.
Besides which, filling up demo cars using the petrol obtained from these part ex's could have all manner of implications. Warranties could be void for starters, should you inadvertantly fill one up from a rogue batch of fuel obtained from a part ex. Leaded petrol for example. You may think you're saving the company £500 a month, but you could also end up costing them a whole lot more.
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SteveG: hopefully you will read Appendix 1 of the circular quoted by Crinkly Dave, which are real examples of what has happened, as well as the other mandatory advice in them. Ignore all uninformed comments on here re improvisation. This is not a game, as the examples show. Your employer must provide safe gear for the job.
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If you're doing this as part of your job, then you'll have to do it properly and do a proper risk assessment and use proper equipment, such as a rotory hand pump. You'll also have to make sure fuel which is being stored during the transfer from one vehicle to another is stored safely and in small quantities and properly labelled. Maybe you should go on a COSH ? couse or something.
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Maybe you should go on a COSH ? couse or something.
COSHH. Control of Substances Hazardous to Health.
www.hse.gov.uk/hthdir/noframes/coshh
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I doubt that there is any sufficiently safe way to do this within a paid job.
Virtually any method of removing the fuel has an element of risk as does the act of putting it into another car. Especially £500 worth - that's 650 litres ? - a lot of fuel from of a lot of cars.
And that's not including any risk to the vehicles by using "duff" or "wrong" fuel.
Sure as fate either something will go wrong or HSE will turn up and have conniptions.
I wouldn't do it if I were you.
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As far as I know there isnt one.as most prevent draining direct from tank.the only way to do it would be by using the fuel tank pump,Would also be looking at the possible chance of explosion due to filling a container without an evaporative cap ie one that prevents fuel vapours from escaping.Unless I am mistaken it is not a good idea to get fuel in that fashion anyway it only takes a person with a fag in hand and bye bye or some one close by to cause a spark there is many a tale of destruction caused by it.Just my thought`s
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Thanks for the replies.
After reading the links provided by Crinkly Dave I typed "fuel retriever" into google. There are companies specialising in equipment which can do this job safely and supply necessary adaptors for newer vehicles with rollover/security valves fitted.
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Sooty: COSHH is relevant of course, but geared more to the health aspects e.g. absorption of benzene, defatting of the skin. But the fire aspect is dealt with by "The Highly Flammable Liquids and Liquefied Petroleum Gases Regulations 1972". How to comply is referenced in the guidance which CD has mentioned. Re small containers (<1000l)HSE document HS(G)51 Storage of Flammable Liquids in Containers, advises re suitable design, marking, prevention of ignition from static charges during transfer. An HSE page with some downloadable guidance: www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/motoindx.htm
Training is important: try www.mitc.co.uk/ as the industry source.
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Disconnect the fuel pipe at the engine, connect on a longer bit of pipe, put the end in your jerry can or whatever, and turn the ignition on. Use the car's own pump.
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Cliff, most if not all electric fuel pumps will only operate with the engine running. They might prime themselves when you first turn the key, but will not run continually until the engine is running.
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True enough - you may need to bypass the relay.
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You should earth the vehicle first with a copper wire to a metal part of the chassis - especially if you're pouring fuel in and out. Four fat rubber tyres make static electricity very likely.
(For proof, ask someone who watched the first episode of Brainiac on Sky - they had someone in a shell suit create a static spark, which travelled (nice oxy-moron there :)) down a 100m copper wire and exploded petrol vapour in a caravan. Quite spectacular, really.
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Seeing as you've brought up using the car's pump (which I didn't due to the diversity of setups you'd encounter in the situation above) most have a fuel pressure regulator on the return side of the injector rail to the tank. a hose can be disconnected to this, and another short one attatched and it pumps out very fast while the car is idling. When my cement mixer needed fuel and I was running out of time, I filled up a Nescafe jar this way it took about 2 seconds, and a shout of WOOO to the g/f.
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You just know there's going to be another thread entitled
"HOW TO GET RID OF THE TASTE OF PETROL FROM MOUTH"
:-)
--
"Ah...beer - my only weakness - my achilles heel if you will"
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Looks a bit risky ST; could end up with more than your tailpipe sooty!
The stat that one litre of spilt petrol can give rise to up to 15,000 litres of a flammable gas mixture and a petrol spillage can be ignited a long way from the site of the spillage due to the spread of the petroleum vapours is the best argument for diesel I've seen in a long time.
How come petrol is allowed in the Channel Tunnel??.
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£500 a month?
Call me morbid, but I don\'t think this worth the risk in any way without special equipment. A friend of mine was nearly killed and witnessed a taxi driver ablaze attempting this.
Added to this, you run the risk of getting fuels mixed up and wrecking other cars.
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I can understand the safety concerns.
If I buy the correct specialist equipment (which costs a few hundred pounds) what's the problem ?
Millions of people transfer petrol from one container to another every day - at a petrol filling station.
The issue of contaminated fuel i.e 4 star mixed with unleaded can be resolved by using two sperate machines.
For example, today we took in a 51 plate Beetle with the tank 3/4 full. Tommorow a trader is buying this car so were 'giving' him £35-40 of fuel. My estimate of £500 a month is conservative...
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I have enjoyed this thread and hope that SteveG and his boss enjoy their additional renumeration for many years to come.
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Tommorow a trader is buying this car so were 'giving' him £35-40 of fuel.
Wouldn't it be simpler to just to include the fuel in the selling price of the car? ie, add another £30 to £50 onto the window sticker.
Also, I can't remember if anyone has already mentioned this or not, but every premise that stores over 15 litres of petrol, whether it is for sale or for their own private use, must be licensed and comply with the rules for the safe storage of petrol.
www.tradingstandards.gov.uk/shropshire/petrol.htm
The question you have to ask yourself is, "is it really worth all the red tape and aggro just for the sake of a saving a few £££; when all you have to do is just up the selling price a little and get the same result?"
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Or - wait for it - suffer the loss. I've bought two cars; the first came with a couple of litres of diesel and had to be filled up a mile down the road.
The second; I asked nicely and the dealer put 50 litres in it gratis.
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Many years ago I saw a training film called "US Army Medicine in Vietnam". The subject matter is obvious, MASH but with no laughs, very front-line. There were some severe injures caused by the amount of lethal ordnance flying around. The worst injuries had been caused by petrol explosions. People got tired, or got careless with a familiar substance and made a minor mistake with fatal consequences.
Petrol is far more volatile and dangerous than explosives. If it was a new invention, it would never be allowed on the market. You have to get through your entire career shifting 650 litres a week, without you, or anyone in the immedite vicinity, ever once doing anything slightly silly. I'd rather handle explosives.
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PS, Be sure to ask your employer for a written risk assessment and keep a copy at home, if you ever get it. I'm fairly certain that Health and Safety legislation requires a risk assessment. If anything does go wrong, it's might be claimed that the victim(s) had been contravening the management's instructions.
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I've just tried the type of hand pump used to inflate an airbed (not a foot pump) and safely extracted 45 litres of petrol from my dead Vauhall Omega into my wife's car.
Attach garden hose to the deflate nozel and insert into donor car, attach another length of gargen hose to the inflate nozel and insert into the other car (or can).
I Pumped (slowly, carefully) for approximately 5 minutes and extracted the lot. I suggest anyone trying this throw away the pump and hose afterwards (or keep for another occasion if this is all it's used for)
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You should also be advising the insurance company (of the business) that you will be handling fuel in this way. As others have been saying, it's high risk - if the worst happened the last thing anyone needs is for the insurance co. to refuse to pay out as it wasn't a covered risk.
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Don't know how to - but found this on how not to:
youtu.be/hn08MlVqf_I
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