Sticking the tanks

[AMonger]

Not driving a big truck anymore, this won't apply to me today, but you never know about the future.

I saw someone on a ship coat a tank stick with prefer of some sort prior to sticking it so they could easily read the depth of the fuel by sering how much powder remained on the stick. The powder container looked like a regular talc or baby powder container, but I can't imagine that being good for an engine. The ship engine and tanks are much larger, of course, so maybe that makes a difference.

Has anyone used this method?

 

[Turtle]

It's yer basic baby power. Coating a stick with it is common on boats of all sizes (gas and diesel), as well as home heating oil tanks. Baby powder made with pure corn starch is better, but talc is also fine. It dissolves completely into the fuel and does not harm it in any way. If you use it in a tank that serves an engine with fuel injectors, then using a diesel treatment like Howes or Power Service is probably a good idea, as the Tricalcium phosphate found in some baby powders could possibly clog injectors, but it would take a lot of baby powder and a lot of years for that to happen. The other chemical structures typically in baby powder are all hydrocarbon or alcohols of some sort and chemically break down very rapidly.

 

[usaf6186]

When I moonlighted at a gas station while in the AF we would stick the tanks to check the fuel level. Ever so often we put a paste on the bottom of the stick that reacted to water to check how much water was in the bottom of the tanks. Jerry Lee