The bottom of my dip stick looks like someone put a tack weld on the end. I haven’t seen any signs of overheating. Haven’t noticed it before, is there something going on?

Maybe someone laid the dipstick across the body and the positive terminal. Look close you might find a second arc mark.

I've sent dipstick looks like that before look like a teardrop at the bottom, may be designed that way so it slides down easier

seen this as well, guessing you have an aftermarket dipstick that just has the nub at the end.

Nub about size of bb?  As in bb gun?  Common on older flat nose class 8's, that dip stick was 5 or 6 feet long.  Round bb keeps from getting caught up  on stuff when shoving back down hole is my opinion.  

Mine came new with a bb sized weld ball on the end.  I thought they all looked like that.

9 hours ago, roadwarrior said:

Mine came new with a bb sized weld ball on the end.  I thought they all looked like that.

My 02 just comes to a rounded point. Dont know about any other years.

Mine is just a tapered point. 

45 minutes ago, Mopar1973Man said:

Mine is just a tapered point. 

Mine is tapered but the point is round. Should have been a bit clearer.

4 minutes ago, dripley said:

Mine is tapered but the point is round. Should have been a bit clearer.

Same here. Mine would the same as yours.

Anyone know of any differences in pans? Probably irrelevant but the dodge transmissions that mercedes pioneered for us dont come with a dipstick and you have to use a special tool. The special tool is a dipstick quite literally but its marked in milimeters and the end is a ball thats designed to sit in a pocket so to speak so that you get the same reading each time. It makes it so you can only push it in so far.

But I thought these were all limited by the dipstick tube and just stuck into the oil like most other engines.