For a long time I have wanted to build a tool for bleeding brake lines by myself. I figured if I could find some sort of suction apparatus I could do just that. One day while perusing the GL stuff locally, I noticed that there were six gastrointestinal suction devices coming up. I threw down a $60 bid, and since nobody else wanted them, I got them for the minimum bid which was then $50.
After the EUC cleared I drove over to Ft Lewis to pick them up. They were all brand new still in their original cartons. I got them back to my little rental house in Tacoma and hauled them into the dining room, which had become a sort of garage/basement since I seldom dined formally. I unboxed one of them and assembled it. With eager anticipation I plugged it into the wall socket and flipped the power switch on, taking a step back so as not to be startled by the deafening angry sucking sounds I was expecting to hear.
Well, there was no sucking sound, angry or otherwise, just a slow lazy wheeze that sounded like someone with emphysema. I took it apart to see how it worked, and if I could make it work a little harder. Inside there was an aluminum cylinder which contained a heating element. The element would heat the air, causing it to expand, and forcing the air out through a check-valve. The element would cycle off, causing the air within to cool, and create a slight suction, which would pull air in through another check-valve through a large glass jar. It was then I realized that this piece of equipment was supposed to sit bedside, and was supposed to suck excess fluid out of body cavities after surgery, and would probably never be able to pull fluid through a brake line or out of a transmission. And I had six of them.
I found a buyer, but since medical equipment needs to be certified, and these would need to be recertified, and considering the legal mumbo jumbo in the EUC, it wasn’t financially feasible after shipping to bother, so I gutted them for useful parts and threw out the rest. Lesson learned.
Epilog: Several years later I bought a real vacuum pump from the state auction for $50, which was reported to be seized, so nobody else bid on it. I brought it home and tried to take it apart, but couldn’t figure out how to separate the pump from the motor without causing damage. I put it back together and plugged it in, and it was sucking like it was supposed to. I connected the pump to one of the glass jars and stuck a hose down the fill tube on my transmission and it pulled all the oil out of the pan. In the end, I found a use for most of the parts, especially the super cool glass jars that allow you to suck fluid without sucking it through the pump (and ruining it); they even have a built-in automatic shut-off feature.
EDIT to add: In the pictures you can see the glass jar and the wheeled base from the gut sucker. I wish I had kept more of the bases instead of just the wheels. They make great furniture movers; I'm using the one in the pictures as the base for my Honda Generator.
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