I have a 95 vw passat that needs to have the gas tank drained the only thing I could find on the Internet on how to do so is taking off the top of the fuel pump and hand pumping it out. Does anyone know of a easier way?
Nope. The fuel filler neck has an anti-siphon device, and most tanks don’t have drain plugs. There are some clowns that have drilled a hole in the bottom of the tank to drain it, then plug the hole with a gas tank repair patch, but I highly recommend you NOT do that.
Just drop the tank and pump it out. I use a floor jack with a wooden board so the jack won’t damage the tank. I have a kerosene pump, designed to put kerosene in the heaters, that I use to empty the tank into gas cans. The hand pump was about $5 at Home Depot.
Does it have an electric fuel pump? Hell…just let the pump pump it out…or did you PUT DIESEL in the tank? In that case the pump cannot entirely drain the tank down to nada. If you need to litererally dry the tank out then you need to drop the tank…if you want all fuel sans say a half gallon out…use the electric fuel pump in the car to do the dirty work for you…
You would jumper terminals 87 and 30 at the FPR under the hood (Fuel Pump Relay) to get the pump to run constant
I remove the Schrader valve from the fuel rail test port, connect a length of rubber hose from the port to a gas jug, and then jumper the pump relay terminals.
With many GM cars the relay doesn’t even have to be jumped; a hot wire can be routed right to the pump test plug under the hood.
Yup…that’d work too
Assuming the pump works. Most of the time, dropping the tank is usually because the pump failed.
Usually, you can work a small clear vinyl tube through the filler neck and siphon it out…use 3/16 or 1/4" tube. It takes a while but it’s easier than dropping the tank…