Fuel tank dryers

[arojay]

Does anyone have experience with the water absorbers that you plunk into the tank?  I remember these things from the 70's and 80's when I was a young truck driver and our fuel was often contaminated with water(and dirt), but they seem to have mostly fallen off the map.

[beenthere]

There are a couple. PIG and Tank Dryer are on Amazon. Seem to get good reviews. 

[arojay]

Yeah, there are a couple of choices on Amazon, but they all seem to be finishing stock because the dryers are going out of production.  Like I said, these things used to be in pretty regular use, so I'm curious about why.  Supplied fuel is much cleaner now, maybe that's a factor.  I have been getting air intrusion on my 440B skidder for a while now and getting worse.  I got to the point of suspecting the standpipe in the tank so I started running the pickup and return from a jerry can this week and no more bubbles.  Long term I'm thinking of teeing into the tank drain and dropping in a tank dryer to get rid of condensate water before it gets into the pick-up.  Good news is, I drained all of the fuel out of the tank and had a good look inside.  No visible rust!

[teakwood]

My skidder tank has a "titt" on the bottom with a drain valve where you can drain water and dirt. same as my excavator

[arojay]

Tour 540 and my 440 are likely the same.  One plan I'm considering is to replace that drain with a valve and tee, one leg to the fuel feed and the other for a drain.  I'm curious about real world experience with the tank dryers that are available.  I'd hate to find out that the quality is not good by finding blobs of saturated silica gel in my fuel system.  I'm also thinking about adding a drip leg to the tee but that has some disadvantages too.