Secrets to using an oil extracting pump

Steve,
I'm not familiar with the pump but I suspect it needs to be primed. What type of pump is it?

i can confirm that the pump is putting a vacuum on the hose....it did suck a drop or two into the tank, but that's about it.

So Pi$$ed. Scott, yes, going thru the dipstick. I tried the electrical tape. That helped a very little bit. I was able to actually get about a spoonful of oil into the container. I think i'm losing some vacuum from the seal in the pump. As you push/pull the plunger on that pump. Shouldn't I feel increasing resistance as the vacuum is created in the tank?

With an investment like this, you likely got the low end. With all the uses for this extractor (boat, auto, even lawn mowers) Id do yourself a favor and get a better unit. 8122 said the right thing though, as usual. If it were me, I would want to first assure the tube was making it far enough down to hit the bottom. If it is, then you can pretty much garuantee you are loosing suction somwhere. I can do my boat in about 30-50 pumps total and it takes around 10 minutes if that for the unit to start sucking air from the bottom.

ok fellas, i pulled the hose out and put it into a used oil container and gave it few pumps and voila...it pulled the oil out...not a pump problem here, but the operator.....is it possible that I have too much hose shoved down into the oil pan and that the end of the hose gets curled around and back up and is sitting above the oil level in the pan? at rest, will the oil pan be "full" of oil? Ideally, i'm guessing I want the end of that hose to be at the lowest part of the pan (rear of the slanted engine_)the engine is probably a half quart low, but that shouldn't be enough for it not to pull at least some oil (if not most of it) out.

sorry to drag you motor heads into this, but the only scenario that I can see as being possible.

Steve, if your boat is equipped with that 'oil drain hose' I help it by putting a piece of vacuum hose on the end of my blower on my air compressor, stick it in the dipstick tube and start blowing! I can empty that sucker in less than 2 minutes!

apparently when i pushed all of the hose in the very first time, i kinked the tube (wire reinforced). that caused part of the problem. Cut the kinked part off and then used quinner's suggestion about pushing the hose in slowly while applying vacuum until the oil started to flow. that worked, but......I don't know why anyone would use this method if they have the quick drain hose. Exception (boat on lift or in water). I think there's a pretty good reason why CC put the quick drain hose on there instead of giving everyone a pump extractor. this method is a PITA no matter how good the pump works in my opinion. After pumping all I could get to come out, I removed the drain plug to see how much was left and I'm guessing 1/2 quart continued to flow out. I'm sure the vacuum hose could've been fiddled with to get more out, but damn I could've done it in half the time with the quick drain hose.
Again my opinion. Pete, i know you don't like my pump so please spare me about buying the wrong pump.   

The only thing I'd add here, and maybe you thought of this, is to remove the oil fill cap to let air in.

Admittedly, I have no experience with the pumps, but just from reading the thread, I noticed that no-one mentioned the fill cap. With that still installed you'd have a total vaccuum and no oil would flow. Removing the fill cap even speeds up the process when using a conventional drain plug.