My fuel pump/sender unit has started overheating in the car, its melted or burned a small hole in the inspection hatch above the tank so fuel has started leaking from the tank, as well as tell tale whisps of smoke. 🙁

Need to syphon some of the fuel out as its full, got some clear hose and a big metal fuel can, but on my first attempt with clear tubing I hesitated as the fuel appeared, it ran back slightly so on my second suck I got a lungful of fumes which I don't really want to repeat 😉

Any ingenious ideas for stuff around the house that I might be able to start the syphon with?

I don't want to use anything electrical so that rules out the silly options like the vacuum cleaner, I used to have a footpump for an airbed which sucked but thats gone missing. All I can think of is sealing the hose into a 2 litre water bottle, and then punching a hole in the base of the bottle to drain the water and create a vacuum to drawing the fuel. Drawbacks of this is the neighbours will think I'm syphoning petrol onto the floor, and I'll have to kink the hose, disconnect the bottle and transfer hose to the base of the jerrycan without losing the syphon…

Put the tube in & blow before you suck

chop the bottom off your 2L bottle.. place hose in through top and place the bottom of the bottle in a bucket of water… lift bottle and hey presto… the same effect as you described with the hole..

an old dope smoking device imaginatively named 'the bucket'

A longer pipe probably. Push all of the pipe into the tank so it fillas with fuel then put your finger over the end. Pull the pipe out and down to ground and remeove your finger. Fuel should rush out unless you've pulled the other end of the pipe above fuel level. Put the end of the pipe into a can before you spill too much making sure it's below the fuel level in the tank.

Thanks, all good ideas 🙂

all the physics aside i never got this to work

ended up with a head full of fumes and very little petrol syphoned

has anyone actually done it and got a significant volume out?

ps i used an old camelbak hose

buy a hand pump, you can probably pick one up for a few quid from a chandlers or a car parts place?

Also….

Have you thought how on earth your going to store all the fuel? Its a crimianl offence in anything other than the correctly coloured container.

You can store it in my car…

Well I was using a dark green metal jerrycan from work, reckon its about 15 or 20L. Didn't have much success with feeding all the hose in and withdrawing, reckon its just a few cm's too short. And to top it all, some muppet has dropped the jerrycan and made a hole in the base, and used blue tack to seal it 😈

Didn't try the water bottle trick as the recycling bins got emptied today and I couldn't faced drinking 2 litres of lemonade.

Think I might just borrow a friends drive so the car is level when I open the hatch and then I won't need to drain it.