Unnessary to remove back seat for battery cooling fan cleaning

great tips and write up, thanks!

 

Yeah, that's my experience too: pulling out the back seat is just making WAY more work for yourself.

 

Maybe my standards are lower, but I thought the bolt was ok.

-Chap

 

Betcha epoch_time had spell check in use.

 

Maybe...

 

Thanks to, I think it was a post by Mendel, I checked my fan without removing the rear seat, no problem compressing the seat to get a hand in there to guide the socket and get the bolt started when reassembly.

 

Hm..maybe I will try this next time...

 

Just completed the removal, cleaning, and re-install of the battery cooling fan on my 2008 Prius, and I appear to have made one rather significant error - I didn't read all the forum posts before proceeding!

As epoch_time advised at the beginning of this thread, it is not wise to spin a brushless motor to clean things, as it is apparently not good for the delicate internal electronics. Having not read this first, I used the handy compressed air to get all the grunge off of the squirrel cage fan blades and of course spun up the disconnected motor in the process.

The re-install went smoothly, and when all was back in place and I attempted a vehicle start, I got a number of illuminated warnings including the red triangle with exclamation mark, the engine check, and the hybrid system warning light in the upper left corner of the MFD, and the car will not start.

Everything was working prior to my little adventure, so my best guess based on my belated further reading is that I have a nice clean fan with a cooked blower motor. I guess its a trip to the auto wreckers to seek a replacement, but thought I'd post this as a cautionary tale and also to ask if there's any way I can override the warning systems and safely drive the car for a day or two (to go find the part). Current daytime high temperatures here are around 7 - 9 degrees C.

 

Thanks for the warning. I've used air on mine and (naturally) it spun some, but it survived. I found it unecessary to completely remove the fan for cleaning. Or more honestly, was struggling as to how to remove it, so just cleaned it without complete removal. I found Q-Tip very effective, passing along one blade gap at a time. Mine's a third gen, so maybe not that relevant.

One thought: did you remove the hybrid battery switch? If so, maybe not reinstalled completely? It would be great if it were something that simple causing the problem.

 

When I removed the fan to clean it, I took the fan out of the car and sprayed the dirt out with a garden hose. Make sure to keep the fins from spinning.

Pixel XL ?

 

I did remove the hybrid battery switch - it seemed to go back in rather easily - I'll check that.

 

Success!
Following Mendel's suggestion to check the orange hybrid battery switch I first did some additional searching here on the PC forum and found a short video clip showing a close-up of the orange switch and showing exactly how it is installed.

I then retraced my steps and found that I had not properly completed the installation of the orange switch. After fixing that little problem, I disconnected the 12V negative terminal for a few minutes, then re-connected it, used the double press of the power switch, and the car started properly with no error codes and all systems working. The fuel gauge was a bit wonky at first (showing a single blinking bar), but I knew I had a nearly full tank, and within a mile or so the gauge corrected itself.

I've also now read various threads re when the cooling fan comes on and it appears that it doesn't run until the battery reaches a certain temp. As this probably hasn't happened yet due to my short runs and cool weather, it is possible that I did damage the fan but it doesn't show up as a warning yet. I guess I'll have to wait and see what happens when things warm up.

Thanks to the various contributors who aided me with my first ever Prius monkey-wrenching!