# petrol gauge sender units in cars - anyone want to help me?



## jamie101 (Jul 9, 2014)

*hi there everybody,
i have saved 35 of these ceramic boards from petrol sender units or of scrap cars in our scrap yard,
i know there is not many at the moment, just 35 but all i want to ask is if someone wants to test them for me to see if they are worth saving more of them and to see if it is actually a PM that is on them,
i will pay postage to send them and i would offer the yeild of the metal to the person who who tests them for me, im in the U.K so anyone in the U.K would be exelent to deal with,
i come across loads of these in my scrap yard and they are in EVERY car, exactally the same little boards, and i can save up quite a few,
im not very clever with all this science stuff and i dont like messing around with chemicals i dont understand, thats whay i have asked if someone can help me as you guys know exactally what you are doing,
i have a massive love for PM's and i would love to deal with someone who would process some of my finds and help me, i will of course pay someone to do this for me, im not expecting if done for nothing!

i also get quite a few catalytic converters if someone knows how to salvage the platinum out of those! 8)





*


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## necromancer (Jul 9, 2014)

letting people know your location may help others know where you are

the use of the word "petrol" is a small hint

(sorry, i missed that the UK was stated above)

edit, added my apology for missing content


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## Anonymous (Jul 9, 2014)

Whereabouts in the UK are you? 

Jon


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## jamie101 (Jul 10, 2014)

Im in rotherham, south yorkshire matey, not too far from you, I dont know if anyone will want to do this with me but im just really curious to see what metal it is, thank you in advance,


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## johnny309 (Jul 20, 2014)

Resistive trace........ Pd/Ag alloy 80/20.....bonding the with carbon( the black trace)........ pure Pd won't "work" and Ag oxidates giving a poor contgact with carbon.... This alloy Pd/Ag is deposit on this alumina (ceramic part).....and then they add heat.....the standard industry use for wear parts is about 4 microns....


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## kjavanb123 (Aug 13, 2014)

Hi,

I processed one of these fuel gauge sensor and seems stannous shows positive for Pd or Pt. silver chloride also produced. Here is the procedure with photos,

1- The unit that claimed to posses plating of Pd Ag. Weight 1.8g



2- Dissolving it in a dilute nitric acid and later heated up.



3- Testing the solution with stannous chloride test, picture is a little off focus but it light orange,



4- Seems like silv chloride precipitated after adding few mls of hcl to solution,



5- The sensor unit after its plating competely dissolved in dilute nitric,



I converted the minor amount of silver chloride to silver using zinc cementation, but could not precipitateany Pd from solution by adding zinc since I ran oit of pH paper to know what pH the solution is.

Regards,
Kevin


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## Platdigger (Aug 13, 2014)

Seems like a lot of silver. Perhaps the solder is silver alloy also.


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## Dunamis (Dec 12, 2014)

I have saved up this gauge up to 200 pieces as it virtually neglected here in our scrap yard. I Started saving them when I read about them on this thread.
Do anyone have precise analysis of the Pd/Ag content, how many piece of these can yield an ounce on the average after processing. good info on this will be appreciated


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## WEEE Ben (Dec 12, 2014)

I'd keep saving until retirement, by that time pd/ag might be so valuable, and you with barrels full, you'll be set, Caribbean, yacht, sexy girls, it's all waiting for you.


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## Pantherlikher (Dec 12, 2014)

Have you been looking at the O2 sensors? I understand there's some inside, or the tiny wires.
Also, any car with air bags. The sensor circuits should have good PMs.
If you rally can spend the time, pull spark plugs and clip the ends of Platinum ones...But that'd take a lot.

Look around the where to find section or do searches on automobile, car(s), truck(s), etc. Should find lots you could be on the look out for.

B.S.


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## arthur kierski (Dec 14, 2014)

in Brazil ,they throw away those petrol gauge sender --since i read one month ago the thread ,i collected over 200 0f these pieces--- 
regards
Arthur Kierski

did anyone assayed these gauges? here they are made by Bosh or vdo


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## MarcoP (Jan 21, 2015)

I'm about to get a batch of ten petrol gauge from a car wrecker for a yield test, if all goes well I'll be the one processing the rest.

After questioning my self over and over I've looked into it and I decided to use 50/50 nitric and drop metallic palladium by bubbling SO2(g), produced in a closed system as shown by Kadriver, in the liquor and then cement silver with a zinc disk (boats anodes, 99,9% Zn) hanged from the top and with a valve regulated air bubbler as agitator. All this performed at 30°C, 90°F, constant heating.
This way I think I can get both ppts. rinsed and ready for storage in 6 hours, am I too far from the reality?

However, the main remaining questions are if SO2 will be able to drop palladium from a 50/50 nitric or it needs to be dropped from a concentrated solution, the other question I don't seem to get rid off is if the precipitated palladium metal would still need calcination or not.

I will record weights, write notes down and take pictures to post.

Thanks in advance.


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## kjavanb123 (Aug 21, 2019)

Hi

I have given 3 pieces of VDO boards that show the fuel level in the car. This time I processed them and recovered the metals.

3 pieces of VDO boards



Total weight



Dissolution in warm dilute nitric acid.



Layer of tin nitrate (meta stannic acid), and green solution.



After filtering tin nitrate, it was washed with hot water, then added salt, the following precipitated as silver chloride.



More pics in next post.


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## kjavanb123 (Aug 21, 2019)

I converted the small amount of silver chloride using zinc powder and hcl, filtered and washed with hot water, based on visual observation, it didn't look like gray fluffy silver metal, rather black in color.



Here is the stannous chloride testing solution result for the nitrate solution which is positive for Palladium.



Prepared a DMG solution, and poured to the nitrate solution above, first DMG salt (white in color) dropped, as I was trying to filter it, DMG salt redissolved in solution again, but few tiny DMG salt pieces remained at the filter paper, but solution was negative for Palladium.





I converted the trace DMG salt to Pd black, using zinc and hcl method, filtering it this is what I got.



Conclusion, which is open to comments from others, I think the ratio of Ag/Pd is more like 80/20. I will have to wait till Sunday which the scrapper suppose to bring 100 pieces of this VDO boards to process.

I hope that will yield some amounts that can be melted.

Best regards
KJ


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## nickton (Oct 26, 2019)

Relays inside cars should yield quite a bit of Ag, or maybe you know that.


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## Kaiser613 (Feb 7, 2020)

What part does this board come out of? The sender unit in the pump assembly in the fuel tank or? Does anyone have pictures of what they came out of?


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## jarlowski1 (Feb 7, 2020)

Its inside the fuel tank. The float rides up and down this part to tell you the fuel level


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## prospector_pete (May 5, 2020)

jamie101 said:


> *hi there everybody,
> i have saved 35 of these ceramic boards from petrol sender units or of scrap cars in our scrap yard,
> i know there is not many at the moment, just 35 but all i want to ask is if someone wants to test them for me to see if they are worth saving more of them and to see if it is actually a PM that is on them,
> i will pay postage to send them and i would offer the yeild of the metal to the person who who tests them for me, im in the U.K so anyone in the U.K would be exelent to deal with,
> ...


*

im in australia , i will process them for you*


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## FrugalRefiner (May 5, 2020)

Jamie hasn't visited the forum for about six years.

Dave


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