How to Drain Gas from Riding Lawn Mower Without Siphon

How to Drain Gas from Riding Lawn Mower Without Siphon

How to Drain Gas from Riding Lawn Mower Without Siphon:

It’s important to drain the gas from your fuel tank in preparation for winter.  Or, perhaps you need to make some repairs and need to drain the gas from the tank.  There are a couple simple ways to go about doing so.

How to Drain Gas from Riding Lawn Mower Without Siphon

The easiest method is to just disconnect the fuel line and drain the gas out.  However, this depends on your setup.  If the engine is gravity fed and does not have a fuel pump, then you can sufficiently drain the gas out by disconnecting the fuel line at the filter and pouring the gas into a separate tank.  

Tools Needed (Commissions Earned)

If your engine has a fuel pump then it’s not gravity fed.  You can still use this method to remove the majority of the gas, but it won’t get it all.

That’s because the fuel pump compensates for the fact that the fuel tank is lower than the engine.  Thus, when you disconnect the fuel line, you can only remove as much fuel until that level is below the fuel line.  What’s left will remain in the tank.

Depending on your need, that could be sufficient.

If you need to remove all of the fuel, then you can siphon the fuel with a turkey baster or other suction device into the end of the fuel line.  This doesn’t require siphoning with your mouth, but it achieves the same desired affect.

By creating a suction, the siphon makes the outside atmosphere less pressure than that of the tank, thus forcing the fuel out.

If You Want to Spend Some Money

If you want to remove the gas directly from the tank, then the simplest method is to buy a fluid extractor that is rated for gasoline.  This device will actually suck the fluid out of the tank.  It’s important to get a fluid extractor that’s rated for flammable liquid however.  

Using this device, it’s possible to pump the gas directly out of the tank and into a separate tank.

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