Used oil tank ideas

[inthedirt]

I run a service truck and do some mobile pm work along with alot of other things. I guess I'm just trying to find the most efficient process possible (and the simplest). When the boss was running a truck he brags that he only used "empty 5 gal buckets that got tied down in the back. Thats all you need..." My idea is in part due to Willie's detailed (and brilliant) post about his water tank. If I had a barrel/tank, could I hook up regulated air to top and have a fitting and hose at the bottom to evacuate/drain it? This part doesn't seem too tough. I have seen products for the manufacturing realm that use a venturi type air vaccuum to move things. Would it work to have a changeover to block off the air source for pressurizing and then be connected to a vaccuum source to suck oil out of (you name it). I know most people use a double diaphram pump and get along great, BUT that costs money and the powers that be will give me a flat NO. What do you guys say?

 

[blitz138]

Personally I hate using ventruri pumps, they have no end of problems. Ive used them in the past for lighter fluids, coolant, hydraulic, and such. Waste oil is to high of a viscosity especially if its cold to make this work imo.

 

[Old Doug]

One place i worked a worker brought in a small belt driven pump with a 110 motor. We used it alot but he quit and took it with him. The powers that will be wouldnt by one. I didnt stay to long there. Its hard to see ways that will save time and money and not do some thing about it.

 

[rdr99]

I have used a small air powered diaphragm pump for moving liquids. For a really cheap pump, I have a drill pump.

 

[fixou812]

We went thru alot of expensive diesel pumps then the lite came on.
picture this... a cheap gadget about the size of a flashlight battery ...
it's called a non adjustable pre set (to ten pounds ) air pressure regulator
You have a 55 gallon etc drum it has two caps a large one and a small one.
(Fondly called barrel Bungs) take the two inch cap with fitted with a four foot
pipe that is one inch diameter or 3/4. Weld it se it's just off bottom.
clamp flow hose to pipe. . Apply regulated air to the small bung hole
and it will push the fluid out rite smart
Well tahellyasay... see my post search starting fluid under this screen name

 

[Construct'O]

I've seem some of the old oil pumps out of a car engine used by mounting on plate with electric motor and adding pulley and suction pipe to the pump.Good luck

 

[Delmer]

I like the idea and think it would work fine. It will be a little slow sucking oil (limited to 15psi vacuum) but that depends on the size of the hose and the temp of the fluid. That will help you to remember to drain the fluids while they're hot.

I'd use a well pressure tank (not the kind with the bladder though!). Hook the hose on the bottom, the venturi vacuum pump on the top, and a valve on the exhaust of the venturi, close the valve and the air flows back to the tank.

 

[inthedirt]

Thanks for the ideas guys! I'm most interested in offloading. Glad to hear that someone else has put air pressure on a barrel to empty it. A funnel works pretty well to pour oil into the barrel but there are times when draining a hydraulic tank for example that gravity will drain most of it, but maybe a vaccuum would suck out the last 10-12 gallons? At one time we had a fuel tank that came off the side of a 580SL that rusted and it would have worked great, but its long gone...

 

[Andrew_D]

We went thru alot of expensive diesel pumps then the lite came on.
picture this... a cheap gadget about the size of a flashlight battery ...
it's called a non adjustable pre set (to ten pounds ) air pressure regulator
You have a 55 gallon etc drum it has two caps a large one and a small one.
(Fondly called barrel Bungs) take the two inch cap with fitted with a four foot
pipe that is one inch diameter or 3/4. Weld it se it's just off bottom.
clamp flow hose to pipe. . Apply regulated air to the small bung hole
and it will push the fluid out rite smart
Well tahellyasay... see my post search starting fluid under this screen name

I wouldn't use 10psi.

We use to get our oil in 50 gallon drums and used this system to transfer the oil up into overhead storage. We only used 5-7psi and it works fine. Still a loud bang when enough oil (weight) was out of the drum for the bottom to bow out! Shop in town used 8-15psi for a while until they blew a drum apart. Any guesses how much ground 20 gallons of oil will cover???

7psi would push the oil from the drum up to storage 12 feet off the ground through a 1" hose in about 40 minutes.

Andrew

 

[Old Doug]

Some one gave me a square fuel tank to put in the back of a pickup it had a regulater on it but it wasnt square any more. I welded on tank wagons one summer we would fill the compartment with fuel and then presser it with 4pounds. That didnt seam like much untill you did it. I would never try to force oil out of a drum they are not made to be use this way. How would you ever get it cleaned up ?

 

[kshansen]

I welded on tank wagons one summer we would fill the compartment with fuel and then presser it with 4pounds. That didnt seam like much untill you did it. I would never try to force oil out of a drum they are not made to be use this way.

A little math, okay I cheated and used online calculator, and 4 psi in a drum with 22.5 inch diameter results in 1,588 pounds of force on the ends! Did not want to see what the surface area of the sides of the barrel was but sure much more than ends! Not something to be playing around with.ointhead

 

[powerjoke]

Just a little off topic but not much, When i cut down fuel tanks And install partitions for hydraulic fluid separation I will pressure up the tanks to about 20psi just to leak test things, have never had one blow apart yet.....not saying it couldn't happen anything is possible I guess

Pj

 

[kshansen]

Just a little off topic but not much, When i cut down fuel tanks And install partitions for hydraulic fluid separation I will pressure up the tanks to about 20psi just to leak test things, have never had one blow apart yet.....not saying it couldn't happen anything is possible I guess

Pj

Are you talking about saddle tanks on a dump truck? Never thought of doing it that way but would make for a neat installation as long as driver is smart enough not to fuel up the hyd. tank! OH is that what that label says?:Banghead

 

[mitch504]

I use old steel saddle tanks for fuel and oil on my fuel trailer, I pressurize them to 15 psi and they have worked fine for years.

At a place I used to work, we had an old 195? f750 with 4 500 gallon steel tanks on a flat bed. The fuel company would come fill it up, and then we would just drive it onsite. One of our "mechanics" pulled a regulator off one tank for some reason. The big square tank's sides blew out into an egg shaped tank, but only one weld split about 3 or 4" long. It made a big puddle, though.

 

[Old Doug]

If some one wanted to use air to force oil out of a tank i would find a tank made for presser. You could use a propane tank. The resone we put fuel in and presser tested the tanks is you cannot compress a liquid so if the tank some how split the only danger would be from were the tank wasnt full of liquid it would still make a mess but would lose its presser in a very short time. If it was full of air and split it would have presser of the split and keep spliting until it lost presser which would take several minutes. Take 2 balloons fill one with air one with water poke them with a pin and see what happens. The same thing can happen with a drum only diffrents is the bang from the drum may be the last thing you will ever hear.

 

[powerjoke]

Are you talking about saddle tanks on a dump truck? Never thought of doing it that way but would make for a neat installation as long as driver is smart enough not to fuel up the hyd. tank! OH is that what that label says?:Banghead

All of my dumptrucks have a tank on the push beam up near the cylinder and it doesn't show so I've never really been worried bout them but below here is the last one I partitioned, state law requires us to have a headboard (and they look cool) so mounting one atop frame rails are not really possible nor would look too good, but in short yes for a wetkit.


Sorry I don't have any better pics I'll try to take some someday if anyone is interested, all you have to do is cut the weld off with a grinder, remove rear end cap, take a sheet of aluminum and slide it down in the tank, you can only weld it from one side without removing the other end of the tank but I have never had a problem. If you need to cut he tank down because it's too long just use a sheet of masking paper and make a good circle line ouround outside of the tank, mark it and use a skill saw with a carbide tip blade it cuts aluminum cleaner and quicker than about any non automated way I have found yet..

These tanks were about 120-130gal so I cut about 4' out of them to make about a 70-75gal tank ,the partitioned tank makes a nice little 30/40gal split but with a 39' end dump and a 9" 5stage ram it does not leave a lot of fluid left in the tank that is for sure.

Pj

 

[mitch504]

Exactly Doug, that's why they "hydro test" high pressure cylinders, they just fill them with water and overfill them.

I have a few tanks made of high pressure tanks, too. I use a propane tank to dispense gear oil, I pressurize that one to 35 psi, which is about 10% of it's relief setting. I use an old air compressor tank filled with water and pressurize that one just like it comes out of the compressor.

the steel tanks never even make noise with 15 psi in them. I have said for years that I was going to fill a drum with water and pressurize it to failure, but I never have. They are a lot thinner than a saddle tank.

 

[Old Doug]

We used a truck air tank to put stop leak in loader tires. I work for a guy that hauled fuel in a 500 gal propane tank. Me and my brother when we were younger made a aircompresser out of a vacuum tank its ends where backwards of a normal tank. It made noise as it fill up.

 

[still learn'n]

we have a sage oil vac and it uses a 5hp air compressor and pulls vacuum off of the compressor so it pulls air from the waste oil tank and creates a vacuum and then blows air into the new oil and pushes it right into the machine we havnt had any problems with it yet! I got 3 60 gal air compressor tanks to make oil system in my truck just havnt got it set up yet! My 2 bits Jerry

 

[jackleg]

This is what I use. (with a harden hose section attached to the pump) It dosn't take much to lift the reeds in a barrel pump to get oil to flow. Oil will siphon out through it once started if the barrel to be pumped out is at a higher elevation than the receiving tank.
My regulator is set at 2# and I never see the needle lift off the peg. The barrel is basically open at the top with only the resistance of the head pressure of the oil in the discharge hose holding pressure in the barrel so the only way to over pressurize the barrel is to add air faster that what the oil can come out. A bigger discharge hose is better. Elevation of the receiving tank will increase the pressure required to move the oil.
When the barrel is almost empty I disconnect the air and hand pump the last bit out.
The hand pump is always available as a back up if there is no air compressor near by.