Busted Auto Siphon?

[rel322]

I used my Auto-Siphon today. While cleaning it, I think I busted it. there's a little plastic regulator(?) that allows the liquid to go through and up and out of the siphon. I un-hooked it and don't know how to fix it. Any suggestions?

 

[pumpkinman2012]

Same thing happened to me.....after two hrs trying to fix the SOB, I went to the LHBS and bought a new one.

 

[JimRausch]

Yep, the same thing happened to me. But I'm part Scottish so tried to fix it.
Step1: Find a long, narrow wooden or metal dowel rod. Long enough to reach the bottom.
Step2: Glue the little dohickie to the dowel and put it down to the end where it belongs.
Step3: Hope that the glue hasn't set, and remove the dowel.
Good Luck!

 

[hunter306]

Yup, just racked this evening, it simply clips into the black base. The clips go down toward the black part and the flat round disc should be on top. A long instrument and some locker-gum will probably fix it, in fact, you can probably use the plunger as your stick if you use a non permanent semi-adhesive. A little silly putty or play-doh may do the job to hold it on the plunger long enough to push it back in place.

Best of luck!

 

[fnord]

Yep, the same thing happened to me. But I'm part Scottish so tried to fix it.
Step1: Find a long, narrow wooden or metal dowel rod. Long enough to reach the bottom.
Step2: Glue the little dohickie to the dowel and put it down to the end where it belongs.
Step3: Hope that the glue hasn't set, and remove the dowel.
Good Luck!

Happened to me too, I balanced that plastic piece on top of a wooden dowel and lowered the wider plastic tube on top of it to click the rogue piece back in to place.

I eventually broke that auto siphon (along with two others) and ended up building something similar to this https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/flyguys-t-siphon-3-replacement-autosiphon-25774/ with a stainless racking cane and a hand pump to start. I put a hoseclamp on both the bottom and center piece of tubing and it makes it pretty easy to run off starsan and take a FG sample while racking to my bottling bucket.

 

[WI_Wino]

I just dealt with this last week. I used a piece of cpvc pipe I had laying around and some painters tape. Wrap the tape up in a circle, attach to pipe, attach plastic do hickey, and slide it in place. I had problems lining up the two tabs that stick out as well as getting them to seat. I had to gently spread them out to get enough pressure so I could pull the cpvc pipe and tape out.

And then the kicker (after all this), I lost the cap somewhere. Ended up buying a new auto siphon but then found out my clamp doesn't fit it as they reduced the size of the siphon since I bought mine 10 years ago. Grrr.

 

[Queequeg]

Garden bamboo cane.
sticky tape
drawing pin

cut a section of sticky tape and stick it to the end of the cane. Push the pin into the same end through the tape. Fold the sticky tape back on itself so that is forms a loop that is smaller than the head of the non-return value. Push the non-return value head first onto the tape. Push the cane down the autosiphon and line up the clips on the non return value with the slot in the siphon. Push the non return value in untill it clicks, pull the cane out and the tape will naturally release the non return value because ist held by the drawing pin..

Wash out siphon with some cleaner. Done.

Will take you about 10 mins if that. No need to mess around with glue.

 

[jonmohno]

Did the same thing twice. Im about to give up on autosiphons,the large one is near impossible to get the piece back in. I did manage to get my minisiphon fixed by using a wire coat hanger and piece of tape. Regular racking siphons are easy enough to use really,its just filling them with sanitizer first and filling the tubing thats the small pita before racking but I find it easy to get use to and ironically more simple. My flow seems more consitant on the rugular cane also. I dont seem to get that bubbleing slurping gurgiling as bad at the end either. Good luck getting that back in,in 10 min.

 

[brent77]

Maybe I was just lucky, but when it happened to me with the large auto siphon, I just dropped it back into the siphon, and kind of bounced it around until it was close to the right orientation in there. Then when I put the cane back into it, I just pushed a bit at the end, and it popped right back in.

 

[jonmohno]

Maybe I was just lucky, but when it happened to me with the large auto siphon, I just dropped it back into the siphon, and kind of bounced it around until it was close to the right orientation in there. Then when I put the cane back into it, I just pushed a bit at the end, and it popped right back in.

YeaH, LUCK. pRETTY MUCH someone can spend a month trying to juggle that thing around til it fits.

 

[tgmartin000]

grrr....I've ruined 3 consecutive siphons this way. Not only that, but my wife was nice enough to lose the little black plug thing as well. An extra $15 for each of the last 3 batches, basically.