Really Bad Battery Repairs

Howa boutcha @strawbrad

I thought you might like this recent gem I found Sunday...it's going to be right in my top 10 finds. And delivered to my door. Looking forward to checking it out. Was advertised as a 2012, because, well, it was removed from a salvaged 370k mile 2012 Prius....it even includes a key fob, just in case I want to drive the battery somewhere...

tmr

 

Nice..and you're 100% spot on about salvage yards. I had a pallet of cores arrive once that looked like someone beat it with a sledgehammer to make everything fit "tetris" style. Even had a couple melted module lugs where the plastic protectors were missing and the case was mashed into the terminals. Your photos are the first I've ever seen with holes blown in the case. It reminds me of some weld jobs I've seen at work, lol. Sometimes makes you wonder how close a vehicle/truck was to being a fireball.

 

Will you test and check these modules? It would be interesting to see if the capacity is still there. I'd keep the working ones, in case of supply chain failure!

 

Torque wrench? We don't need no steenking torque wrench.

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

Famous last words:

"I don't use a torque wrench, I go by what feels right."

 

?

 

With a quick glance I see some things, lol. I love it!! But I'll wait.
Going by the base plate and stickers it's a Dorman?
A hint for one biggie...Most people pay for this modification to go the other way

 

Temperature sensors are in the wrong place? Usually you want to put those toward the middle of the pack where it gets hottest, it looks like this one had them mounted toward the edge.

If I'm wrong, blame it on the fact that I haven't yet had to do any work on my battery.

 

well the last picture has individual cell expansion and corrosion. Swelling of the battery housing is in the same category as "crossing the streams". Lots of cleaning needed on that unit. Battery ECU has 3 stickers????? Wth?
And cell #1 is on the end of the battery furthest away from the Battery ECU? Isn't that backwards?

 

The big one that jumped out to me in the first photo is that it's a Gen 2 HV battery (case, lol) with Gen 1 modules. The color scheme of the base plate is Dorman. The clamp bars and end caps, rubber vent tubes and intake air temp sensor (green wires) & mount give away the gen 2 part. The orientation on the retainer clips on top give away the Gen 1 module. Gen 1 has the clips oriented towards the sides of the module. Gen 2 and above, the retainer clips are oriented with the clips toward the ends of the module.
The white wires going to the temp sensor that's glued to a module is a "wth". Gen 2 has the temp sensors mounted to the bottom of the modules, since that's the 'outflow' of cooling air after it passes through the modules. Gen 1 has them on top, since cooling air on a Gen 1 enters from the bottom. Not sure what they were trying to accomplish by gluing a temp sensor to the top of a module, although it looks like the actual 'retainer' portion of the thermistor has been broken off and they just jammed it down into the sensor hole and glued it in place. That sensor will effectively only show whatever intake air temp is, unless the battery gets extremely hot. Maybe they just thought since it was a gen 1 module, that the temp sensor has to be mounted on top, instead of utilizing brainpower to understand why the sensors are mounted where they are in the different gen batteries. Had to break off the retainer clip ends to get it to fit in the hole, lol.

Most big rebuilders remove the OEM stickers from the ECU. Since there were several part codes reflecting updates over the years, I guess they don't want you to be upset if you see a 2004 ecu in a battery going into a 2009 or something.