Cheap 12V Diesel Transfer Pump

Just thought I would share. I bought this cheap 12V Diesel transfer pump off that auction site. I badgered the seller a little since they had a "make offer" button but at the end of the day I only paid a couple dollars less than the asking price. My cost ended up $67 shipped. Several sellers have these and sell at different prices. Just search for 12v diesel transfer pump and sort the results by lowest price and you can work your way down to the cheapest. It was US stock so it came in a few days.

It comes with a nice pair of battery clamps but not connected to the pump wires which had eyelets on them. I enlarged the holes in the clamps with a 3/16" bit and screwed the eyelets to them. It's kind of cumbersome to assemble at first but I think it will work out fine now that I have it situated. I screwed the pump onto a piece of plywood to make it sit more stable and I tie wrapped a ridged piece of plastic to the pickup tube so it will go down into my drum. Everything i have was full except I had a little room in the tank on my JD so I topped it up just to test the pump. It primed and pumped fine but did not shut off at the nozzle right away when I let go of the handle. It only overflowed a little so I will watch for that next time.

I assume it is made in china but it did not say anywhere on anything where it was made. The box and label on the pump are all in clear English. Oddly enough the paper that came with the accessories was in German. The pump label says 12V but it had a label stuck over that incorrectly listing it as a 220V AC. I just peeled that off to expose the 12V label and chunked it. The box had squares to check for 12V or 24V but neither was checked so I assume it's available in 24V but haven't searched for it. If I would have known I might have searched for the 24V version since I am using one of the batteries in my generator to power it. I just hook to the leading battery on that to get 12V so no big deal.

I am fixing to go back out to cap the nozzle before you say anything. That was the first thing I noticed when I looked at the photo.

Is that a load bank in the background? Sure looks like one I used in germany. The army unit local purchased it, and it was some kind of nice!

Guyfang said:

Is that a load bank in the background? Sure looks like one I used in germany. The army unit local purchased it, and it was some kind of nice!

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I believe it's his home made load bank. He did a write up during the build, it was on his thread when he bought the genset. Really impressive build, in my opinion.

Now it starts to come back to my moth eaten brain! Yeah, looks like top of the line. Went back over the thread. Top of the line.

I saw a bunch of off the shelf stuff in the army. We also had several Army load banks that did the job. The good old A427 was my favorite, but the best, was still a self built one I had in K-town. I used 8 load banks, that were all rated at 30 KW. Needed it for the 150 KW turbine gen set.

Thanks to the OP for the thread. I am considering buying one of these as well. I would appreciate your feedback after you have used it a few times. Does it have or need a separate static ground when you are pumping?

tommys2patrick said:

Thanks to the OP for the thread. I am considering buying one of these as well. I would appreciate your feedback after you have used it a few times. Does it have or need a separate static ground when you are pumping?

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It does not have one but the gun is aluminum so it's shouldn't cause any sparks. No different from using the guns at the gas station.

I was hoping it was an auto shutoff nozzle but it isn't. I submerged it in fuel while filling and it just kept pumping. When I released the handle it didn't stop completely and had a reduced flow of fuel for a second before shutting off. My tank was near full so it over flowed a bit but the fuel flow did stop complete before I made it back to the switch on the pump.

This thing would be a real pain to try and drain completely so I just plugged both ends to prevent dirt from entering.

The reinforced nylon pickup tube is only 6-1/2' long but it comes with a nice 13' long rubber fill hose. I should be able to pull my backhoe alongside the shed my drums are under and fill with no trouble.

tommys2patrick said:

Thanks to the OP for the thread. I am considering buying one of these as well. I would appreciate your feedback after you have used it a few times. Does it have or need a separate static ground when you are pumping?

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BTW, Harbor Freight sells these. I bought one a few months ago, forgot what I paid, but it was on sale at the time or I had a 20% off coupon. If you use the following search terms on the HF page it will come up and you can read the reviews (it has 4 of 5 star rating) which will tell you a lot of the pro's N con's: 12 Volt Diesel Transfer Pump item#66784

I've only used mine once so far and it seemed to work OK but the impeller sounded a bit noisy. I will be using it this summer to refuel my new diesel mower and will see how well it holds up. I will be transferring the fuel out of my generators aux fuel tanks so that diesel gets rotated out more often. Can also use it to transfer fuel out of truck's aux transfer tank to generators if necessary. Handy to have one around. I have a cast iron behemoth electric pump mounted a 55 gal drum but it is a real pain to take off and move around. This smaller one is more portable but you still have hose management issues to deal with.

I looked it up on HF and its 120 bucks there. With no tax I got this for half price.

I picked up one of these HF units yesterday because my previous one just about wore itself out. It was $100 after 20% coupon so not stellar but beats having to return ship it if there's issues. I've used it for just about everything except gear oil and it's a champ. The nozzle isn't an auto shutoff either but the pump shouldn't be too far away from you anyway when pumping. No biggy.

Does it not bring more piece of mind to get a high quality manual pump that you know should work **** near forever, without need for any batteries or chinese electronics?

This is what I have, and I couldn't be happier with it: http://www.globalindustrial.com/p/m...gh-speed-low-profile-diesel-pump-9005lp-27gpm (with a thick black hose and nozzle)

Some day I will add an inline water separator, but since the MEP already has one (and since its fresh and fully stabilized)... my concerns are not that large at the moment. Not helpful at all to the discussion at hand, but knowledge is a great thing.

Light in the Dark said:

Does it not bring more piece of mind to get a high quality manual pump that you know should work **** near forever, without need for any batteries or chinese electronics?

This is what I have, and I couldn't be happier with it: http://www.globalindustrial.com/p/m...gh-speed-low-profile-diesel-pump-9005lp-27gpm (with a thick black hose and nozzle)

Some day I will add an inline water separator, but since the MEP already has one (and since its fresh and fully stabilized)... my concerns are not that large at the moment. Not helpful at all to the discussion at hand, but knowledge is a great thing.

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Howdy,
To much filtering diesel is never a bad thing.

Just did my first real test of this unit and it works GREAT! Sure beats toting 5 gal cans.

I pumped all the fuel from my 803A into my backhoe then switched to the 55 gal drum and finished filling that. Then I filled the generator back up and last I topped off my little John Deere. That about wraps up my reserve fuel so I will order a drum refill soon. Everything on the premises is full for now except the two 55 gal drums.

Note to self: Do NOT open the drum bung and walk away. I left one of the bungs off to get my flashlight to see if that drum had anything in it and when I returned it had a dirt dobber buzzing away inside. No way to get him out but he shouldn't make it through any of the strainers and filters used in the filling process.

Word to the wise. Replace cap on Aux fuel inlet. Dirt dobbers WILL fill that baby up with dirt.

I have one and I put a hyd. fitting on the suction side. I can unhook the fuel line right at the PT and prime up/filter change my 5 tons. The fitting just slips into the end of the hose and seals good enough.

Floridianson said:

I have one and I put a hyd. fitting on the suction side. I can unhook the fuel line right at the PT and prime up/filter change my 5 tons. The fitting just slips into the end of the hose and seals good enough.

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Sounds like a good idea. I need to lengthen my suction hose so I might try to make a pickup tube with a quick connect.

Okay everyone all these transfer pumps everybody's using who's had one working for more than 2 years with no problems please have a model number for reference greatly appreciated .

Thank you!

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This unit I have is still working fine at a year and a half. I don't have a model number but I've seen the same unit on ebay and Amazon.

12V DC 20GPM Gasoline Fuel Transfer Pump Gas Diesel Kerosene w/ Nozzle Kit


The blue one pictured below?

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Or above I mean

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Amazing little (and cheap) Pumps. They get posted (to) all round the globe seemingly.
We have four of them, And they regularly pump out 50 gallon drums of 'contam' without fuss.