Some time back I made an attachment for my shop vac that makes it easy to suck fluids like motor oil, gear oil and the like out of engines or other machinery.? Today I used it to suck the old gear oil out of my bandsaw's transmission, and it occurred to me that others might find the idea useful.? Consider the always-messy job of replacing motor oil in those small engine appliances like lawnmowers -- this guy makes it easy and mess-free.? Same for those badly-designed drain ports for things like ATF and power steering fluids.

I've attached a photo of it:



It consists of a bucket with a decent lid, a few pipe/tubing fittings, two lengths of plastic tubing and a shop vac.? The basic principle is that the shop vac pulls a vacuum inside the bucket, and the fluid is sucked into the bucket via a plastic tube dipped into whatever you want to empty out.? The waste fluid drops into the bucket, not the shop vac so it is easy to dump into a jug for recycling or sending off to the dump.

To make it I drilled two holes in the bucket lid -- a small one for a brass fitting with a ferrule on one end and threaded on the other.? The threaded end is screwed into the hole.? This is where the waste oil enters.? The second hole is larger, made with a hole saw and a plastic bulkhead fitting is installed.? I also turned an aluminum sleeve and glued it into the external side to adapt it to the hose end of my shop vac.? Different shop vacs have different-sized hose ends so other folks who try this need to size that part accordingly.

It took about 30 seconds to suck most of the gear oil out of the transmission box.

If I were to make another one I would make a reinforcing ring out of aluminum or steel and size it to fit about halfway down the inside of the bucket.? Cheap plastic buckets tend to collapse under the force of the vacuum.....

The pumpkins play no part in the fluid sucker's operation :).

Mark

I like the idea of an old canner-pressure cooker, particularly since we were "gifted" with a couple of big ones (even though we already HAD one).? It seems that few use them these days.? At least for canning/cooking :)? But that means they should be relatively easy to find at the thrift store or Goodwill.? Seals for the major brands still are available -- typically the seals on old pressure cookers are pretty much toast.

My scheme using a shop vac isn't suited for sucking out flammable stuff, since the shop-vac motor is right there and likely is a brushed type that generates lots of sparks (ka-BOOM!).? For that kind of thing I'd look at a so-called "elephant's head", basically a two-hole stopper arrangement -- one of the holes is to admit pressurized gas and the other for the liquid being pushed out of the container.? Clearly, the stopper must make a decent seal to the container opening.? I made one for moving home-made wine around, and the pressure source was a bicycle pump.? If THAT generates sparks you're doing something very wrong....

In the wine industry, the pressurized gas used to operate the elephant's head typically is nitrogen or carbon dioxide.? Either one would be pretty good for pushing flammables around as well.? Keeping oxygen away from your wine is desirable, hence the N2 or CO2.

Mark

I got a large, free pressure cooker a few years back and converted it to a vacuum chamber, but haven't used it for a real project yet.? I'm not sure what I used for a gasket.? I remember ordering one from a canning supply place, but it didn't fit correctly.??

-Dave

On Sunday, February 27, 2022, 06:00:54 PM PST, mike allen <animal@...> wrote:

??? ??? It works real well . the reason I ran a tube to the bottom of the pot on the intake was so it was far enough from the suction side so I wouldn't be pumping oil all over the place . I used the type with the wing-nuts around the top . Thinking bout the gaskets , I would think if teh gasket is bad maybe a ring of silicone might seal it up ? The wine builds up pressure as it ferments ? I would think there's probably all sorts of safe-guards around that stuff.

??? ??? animal

On 2/27/2022 5:36 PM, Mark Kimball wrote:

I like the idea of an old canner-pressure cooker, particularly since we were "gifted" with a couple of big ones (even though we already HAD one).? It seems that few use them these days.? At least for canning/cooking :)? But that means they should be relatively easy to find at the thrift store or Goodwill.? Seals for the major brands still are available -- typically the seals on old pressure cookers are pretty much toast.

My scheme using a shop vac isn't suited for sucking out flammable stuff, since the shop-vac motor is right there and likely is a brushed type that generates lots of sparks (ka-BOOM!).? For that kind of thing I'd look at a so-called "elephant's head", basically a two-hole stopper arrangement -- one of the holes is to admit pressurized gas and the other for the liquid being pushed out of the container.? Clearly, the stopper must make a decent seal to the container opening.? I made one for moving home-made wine around, and the pressure source was a bicycle pump.? If THAT generates sparks you're doing something very wrong....

In the wine industry, the pressurized gas used to operate the elephant's head typically is nitrogen or carbon dioxide.? Either one would be pretty good for pushing flammables around as well.? Keeping oxygen away from your wine is desirable, hence the N2 or CO2.

Mark

I like the idea of using a pressure cooker...? but i would have to test the pressure cooker first by cooking some corned beef and cabbage.....