Siphoning...

For three days I've been trying to siphon gas out of the Hyundai's tank.  I foolishly filled it up right before the registration ended.  It is I found out very, very difficult or maybe impossible to get a siphon hose down the gas filling tube in a modern car.  There is a little plastic blocker tied to the housing with springs.  The weight of the gas coming down the tube pushes the blocker down the tube just enough for the gas to fill around it.  But it doesn't really open up enough for a siphon hose to get past it.  At least I wasn't able to make it happen.

Just in case you'd somehow missed it, siphoning gas is a huge pain.  And if you're doing it in a small tight garage it is even worse.  I spent about three hours today pulling up the back seat in the Hyundai, prying off a sealed plate, pulling out the fuel pump, and siphoning gas out the top of the tank.  I did it a gallon at a time with a cheap piece of crap siphon I bought at walmart.  The siphon didn't work at first because it didn't seal where the hoses connected to the pump ball.  I had to take cut up strips of bicycle inner tube and wrap them up and zip tie them on tight to create a seal.

For reasons I don't understand the gas came out of the Hyundai at a trickle that filled the gallon jug I was using in about twenty minutes or half an hour per go.  And there was a lot of fiddling to get it to work each time in the first place.  Then I would transfer the gallon to the Mazda, and that would go fast, but take a while to set up.  And always there were unexpected gas leaks as the pump or the hoses dribbled unseen bits of gas.  So pretty much it got on everything.  What a mess.  But what can you do?  I'm not taking the Hyundai to the scrap yard full of gas.  I finally contacted them and they offered $450 for it.  No sense giving them $35 of gas along with it.