What's a fella to do when the ol' tractor runs out of steam? Or in my case #2 Diesel? Up till now it's meant hauling the five gallon plastic jug out of the pump house and waiting while it did it's huff-huff thing to fill the tank. It's one of those safety POS cans (it was a "gift" with the RTV, as I'd never purchase such a worthless and inhibiting thing myself), and it wouldn't even bring the level to half way on the thirsty Kubota. That's when I was lucky enough to have a full can; usually it was down to a gallon or two from filling up the RTV or starting bon fires.
My genius buddy Bill, knower of all things Kubota, suggested a Harbor Freight fuel transfer pump might be just the ticket to end my travails. It's a little bitty thing smaller than an old time lunch pail, has a pigtail with two battery terminal clamps on the end, and a pair of hoses for gozinta and comesouta. A handful of barbed hose fittings and clamps complete the kit. Best of all, I snagged one on sale a while back (gotta love those HF sale flyers!). His idea was to transfer fuel from the 38 gallon tank in my F250 straight into the tractor. No messing with jugs or heavy transfer tanks, but the tractor would be burning taxed road fuel, not the cheaper red stuff. I don't use a lot of fuel in a year, so the convenience and always using fresh fuel seemed like a good trade off to me.
It was pretty straight forward hooking everything up until I got to the part where I tried to push the feed tube down into the Ford's fuel tank. It seems ol' Henry's minions have put some kind of block or trap to keep gas thieves at bay, or at least those equipped with inch and a quarter diameter hoses. Five eights hose would work though, so a few minutes work and an adaptor mated the two tubes.
Being out of hose clamps at that point, and worrying that their bulk wouldn't fit through the tank tube anyway, I used several turns of safety wire to secure the hoses in place. It worked so well and looked so neat I tossed the hose clamps and used safety wire everywhere.
The next hurdle came in the form of a too short power lead, such that the feed tube wouldn't reach the tank at the same time that the battery clamps were attached. A stop by OSH this morning turned up a remnant roll of 12/2 zip cord that the nice man sent out the door at half price, and a pair of battery clamps left over from another project let me replace the original pig tail entirely. Nice just in case the pump or motor craps out and I have to take it back unmolested.
Finally the moment of truth. The feed tube was dipped into the belly of the freshly filled Ford, the battery clamps were pinching the battery terminals tighter than a rock starlet's wardrobe malfunction, the tractor tank was open and waiting thirstily, and the shiny metal nozzle was in my hot little hand. I flipped the switch on the pump, put the nozzle into the tractor tank, and... Nothing! Just the whirring of the motor and a faint gurgling from the truck's filler tube. WTF? Two fingers over the nozzle opening confirmed that the pump was running backwards, but it was just a matter of swapping a pair of leads on the pig tail to set things right.
This time I could hear the motor load up a few seconds after I hit the switch, a good sign that the pump had primed and was ready to deliver. A tentative squeeze on the nozzle brought forth a gusher of #2, and in what seemed like no time at all the ten gallon tank was full. Maybe not as quick as down at the local Chevron, but the only way this tractor is gonna get to a Chevron is ridin' a trailer I haven't bought (yet).
I was so excited at the prospect of having my own filling station that I decided to tempt fate and try filling up the RTV, even though it was still half full (or half empty, depending on your own particular philosophy). Once again things worked perfectly and I now had two full Kubotas and a slightly less than full truck (fifteen gallons from the truck's thirty-eight still left plenty for getting my little piggies to market
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A hook in the pump house and a five gallon bucket for the hoses to drain into completed the arrangement for now, though I'm keeping an eye out for a hundred gallon tank to use for storage on site. I'm feelin' more like a farmer ever day!
