Oil and fuel pumps
Oil and fuel pumps
The hand pump with a sixty-centimetre hose, the battery pump for two D cells or six AA cells, the twelve-volt model for the cigarette lighter socket and the mains diesel pump rated at one hundred and fifty-five watts all do much the same job, each at a different speed. Alongside them sit fluid extractors with a six-and-a-half or fifteen-litre container and battery submersible pumps that you lower straight into the drum. The power source decides where you are allowed to work, because AA cells and a battery pack run anywhere, twelve volts needs a car and the mains version a socket. Some models carry a nozzle with automatic shut-off, because the moment the liquid covers the small port in the spout, the vacuum inside snaps the valve shut and nothing overflows.
The first number worth a look is the flow rate according to the liquid. Oil pumps here give one to four litres a minute, while submersible diesel pumps manage thirty to sixty. The gap makes sense, because oil is thick and an oil change releases only a few litres, whereas a tank is filled with a great deal more. Temperature matters too, because warm oil runs faster than cold, so let the engine idle for a few minutes before you draw it out.
Two different things are also sold under one name, and the unit in the description tells them apart. A workshop transfer pump is quoted in litres per minute, whereas a replacement part for the car is quoted in pressure, meaning three bar or forty PSI. An injection engine wants roughly two to three and a half bar and a carburettor engine around half a bar, so one will not stand in for the other. If you see bar or PSI among the figures, you are looking at a fuel-system component and not at a drum pump.
The most important line in the whole category concerns the fuel, because petrol belongs only in a pump that is approved for petrol. Diesel has, under the EN 590 standard, a flash point above fifty-five degrees and petrol around minus forty, so its vapour ignites even in frost. The cheap twelve-volt pump is usually meant for diesel, paraffin and water and holds no approval for petrol, whereas the version with ATEX certification and a non-sparking motor does. Read the rating plate before you drop the hose in, because this is not about power but about ignition.
The extractors form a group of their own, and their whole point is that the thin hose goes down through the dipstick tube while the sump plug stays shut. A hand pump does the same for less, only you have to stand there and pump, whereas the extractor holds the vacuum by itself. Let the hose drain when you have finished and take the used oil and fuel residue to a collection point, because neither the drain nor the bin is where they belong.
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