The Home Machinist!

Thirty years of accumulating sludge eh? Gonna be some rust under that!

I plan on measuring and setting the extension to keep it off the bottom.

Not sure if I can determine just how much to keep it off the bottom. If I had a clear tube, I could stick it in, put my thumb over the end and pull it out. That would give me sort of a "core sample".

I know we have sludge in the tank. Whenever I get an oil delivery, I shut off the oil burner and leave it off for about 1/2 hour to allow the sludge to settle before I turn it back on.

Steve

Steve, you don't have to justify your actions to me and I did in fact move my oil tank in my first house to get more room in the heated basement for my shop. I was young then and maybe lucky (as you may be, both, I hope) I had no problems or tank leakage.
It was however still younger than 30 yrs when I, years later, took it out of the second spot, the unheated garage, when I went to electric forced air.
Electric furnace you say! Hold on, it was in Quebec where they almost GIVE away the electricity.
It's just that at some point $500 seems like a bargain compared to thousands of dollars in clean-up, possible fines and smell that you may get used to but guests will always notice.

cap the down pipe and add some inlets about 2 or 3 inches from the bottom that way you can sit on the bottom and stay out of the sludge. a 1/2 inch drill motor will spin it nicely, now you got a job for the old brute you have had under the bench for years.

Well, the oil tank work was done this morning.

Plumbing was done by B&G Piping in Milford, CT. Very professional guys (disclaimer - a friend of mine is one of the owners).

Once the new tank was in place and they pulled the filler off the old tank, I hooked up my Harbor Freight barrel pump ($25.99 on sale, plus a 20% off coupon) and started cranking.

I had a short piece of 1-1/4" tubing to connect to the pump, then a home-made adapter to go down to 3/4" tubing for the run to the tank. I figured I was never going to pump fast enough for the 3/4" tubing.

Hand pumping was working but going slow, so I rigged up a quick adapter out of a piece of pipe and some bolts and hooked up the 3/4hp Craftsman drill to it. It ran a bit too quick (800 RPM). I plugged it into a variac at about 80% and that did fine.

The barrel pump got it down to about 5" left. We got the rest of that out into 5-gallon buckets by removing the plug at the end and tipping it with a jack. Got 15 gallons of clean oil about 2-3 gallons of black.

Going to let the 3 buckets settle to be sure there is no dirt in them and then syphon that into the tank.

The fun part was the look on the plumbers' faces when I started making fittings and the adapter on the fly using the lathe.

They got the old tank outside, laid it on its side, cut it open and there was a layer about 1/2" thick of sludge covering about half of the tank. That alone made me figure it was a good reason to get a new tank. The tank was actually pretty sound structurally. The lead plumber said that this one was quite a bit thicker than the new ones.

Thanks to all that helped out with suggestions, particularly Harold for suggesting the HF pump.

Steve

Well done!
Do I see metal studs in the background? Looks like you're finishing the basement.

Harold

_________________
Wise people talk because they have something to say. Fools talk because they have to say something.

Yes. Sadly, the oil tank had to be moved to the shop side, so now I have to rearrange the shop. At least that gives me an excuse to get that done now.

Steve