Siphoning doesn’t have to leave a bad taste in your mouth if you know a trick or two. In this article, we share multiple techniques to get the job done without taxing (or ‘toxing’) your taste buds.
When you need to get some old, stinky gas out of your tank the thought of accidentally getting a mouthful can definitely invoke a pause.
Siphoning doesn’t have to be unpleasant, however, as we’ve got a few tricks and techniques that you can use to avoid having to taste what was in that tank.
Today we’ll share a few methods that you can use so that you can pick out the one that you think is best and the thought of siphoning should no longer leave a bad taste in your mouth!
Attempt at your own risk
Ye olde standard siphon | Proven For a Long Time
All you need is a long enough hose. But we do NOT recommend this method because of its health risks.
Traditional siphoning is usually quite fine as long as you’ve got a long enough length of hose. Shorter lengths mean that the gas has less distance to travel and that’s the main cause of ‘gas mouth’ when siphoning out your bike’s tank. With a longer hose, these steps will usually do the trick:
- Have a long hose ready. Clear is best so that you can easily see the gasoline.
- Insert that hose into the tank, well below the gas level.
- Pull the hose down to a level well below the gas tank so that we can have gravity on our side.
- Get your container ready and suck the hose until the gasoline is HALFWAY there.
- Quickly put the hose into the container and it should start filling up with the gasoline from your tank.
Now that we’ve just overviewed the standard method, there are a few other siphoning tricks that you might find more to your liking. This next one will require a tennis ball!
Best Siphon Trick! | Make a siphon bulb from a tennis ball
You may have heard of or seen a ‘siphon bulb’ but if you are not familiar with the concept, it is simply a rubber bulb that you can squeeze when you want to siphon some gas instead of creating suction with your mouth.
It’s really just a formalized version of an old trick that that many cyclists have been using for years. Try the following steps to perform this yourself and see what you think:
- Get yourself a length of ~ 50-inch clear tubing ready
- You will need to make 2 holes in a tennis ball, one on each side, and the easiest way is just to take something sharp and stick it directly through. Keep the hole small since this is the suction for the hose.
- Get your container ready and put your hose in one hole on the tennis ball and your thumb over the other. Be sure to bring the hose down to a level below the tank, as we did before.
- Give the tennis ball a squeeze with your thumb still over and as the ball ‘pops back’ it should start drawing the gasoline through the hose. When it is halfway there, yank out the hose and place it in your container and it should fill up shortly.
If you don’t like that method, we have yet another that you can try that will keep you from tasting gasoline as well.
Get a rag and a hose and try this trick
An easy means of siphoning will just require a length of hose, a rag, and the following steps:
- Put your hose inside the tank and push it down to the bottom.
- Wrap your rag around the hose at a level with the fuel opening and push down lightly on it so that it acts as a seal. It doesn’t have to be perfect, a little pressure will do.
- Get your container ready and blow HARD into the hose to create pressure in the tank.
- Quickly place the hose into your container and the siphoning process should begin.
Some parting tricks to say goodbye | Most underrated Siphon Trick
We hope that you’ve enjoyed this quick exploration into traditional siphoning methods. Before we go, there are two more ‘quick tips that we can share that you might find useful. First, if your fuel petcock has a ‘Prime’ setting then you can remove the hose from the end that is NOT in your petcock, turn on the ‘Prime’, and the gas should start coming right out into your container.
Finally, our last trick is one that a lot of racing cyclists use and it simply requires placing a PCV valve on the end of your siphoning hose with the other end in your tank. Shaking the PCV causes the one-way valve to create the required suction to start the siphoning process.
Now that you know a few time-tested tricks you may siphon with confidence!
Here is a simple, but an awesome video on How-To Siphone a gas tank
Here is an awesome video on How-to siphon gas out of a motorcycle tank. It shows easy and clear, step-by-step how you do it! Check it out. Only takes 2 minutes. And remember, if you wanna be on the safe side, just use a tennis ball 🙂
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