2001 Prius Inverter Pump

Well I did get the miniVCI up and running; it was quite simple actually. I did not find it reporting the temperatures in the transmission though. I did confirm the P3120 codes though. With the time I've spent I still have the same code coming up and there doesn't appear to be a solution other than that dreaded transmission swap out. Unfortunately I'm lacking the funds to pick a known good transmission. I'm apprehensive to risk my money and time on a used trans that could have the exact same issue that I currently have.

I've decided that I'm calling quits on this little '01 and parting her out. With the main battery selling Saturday I've recouped 2/3 of my investment already. The inverter has been removed and has now been listed. This is definitely not the way I wanted this to go down but I have to move on.

 

Nothing lasts forever. Hopefully the parts will help another NHW11 last a little longer.

Bob Wilson

 

Well another turn in the story... I was contacted about the engine. The gentleman thought it might be too much of a job for him to complete the swap himself. I'm considering buying his '01 NHW11 now. I'll try to get the engine removed from mine before making a final decision. His car appears to be very well taken care of until the connecting rod exited through the block wall. More pondering...

 

Continuing the dismantling of the poor NHW11... I'm about to list the new inverter pump I bought on eBay but then thought that I'd offer it up to the PriusChat folks first. I'll sell it to you guys for $100 delivered. If interested please private message me. More photos to come soon.

 

Reviving the dead, this thread had some useful info for me, I thought I'd post back and contribute with information that's useful to you guys in this thread possibly.

I am building an air/water intercooler for a turbo project, to save money I thought I would grab a inverter pump off a Prius. Found a gen1 in my local j/y, the front was already torn apart and took 5min to grab the pump.

Went home, did some testing.. Went to hook it up to my battery to do a test in the car and poof. It blew up. I think I reverse pol'd it. My bad, but who the **** uses black for positive and white for ground? oh yeah, toyota. MY BAD. Oh well.

No other prius's in the yard, damn; on a whim I search for Prius V and C, figured the j/y people wouldn't even care and just click 'prius' for all of them but there was indeed two V's.. both Taxi's

One had the motor/drive gone and no pump. The other one had the pump, and damn they are in a bit of a worse spot on the gen3 to get out. Got it out, and, what the f**k? four terminals? Looks like a better pump though, I was thinking the other wires might just be an internal temperature sensor (hoping as that could've been useful for my application)

Anyhow, doing some digging on Google, I come across this thread and think I'm going to have to wire up a micro just to get this thing to spin right. I don't know if you ever bothered in your tests; seems like you were being careful to not destroy a pump (understandable, especially years ago when they weren't $10 in a j/y) but the wiring diagram shows +12v from relay and gnd, so, giving it that shouldn't do anything bad..

I set up a quick loop and powered it up with a wall wart; seemed to push through coolant just as fast as the gen1 pump did. I cannot 100% confirm at this time the pump was running 100% duty but it definitely appeared to be; it's flowing how I would expect it to and again as the gen1 did.

So in that case, anyone wanting to use a gen3 pump on a gen1, should be able to just ignore the two extra wires and go to town. Of course, do your do diligence, I don't own/drive a hybrid or a prius, would be good to obvioulsy monitor the inverter temp and such if you try this but I don't see why there would be an issue unless it's not actually running at 100% duty without a supplimental signal, I didn't actually measure any flow but I would've noticed if it was much less than expected I believe.

I may end up probing/testing with the other two terminals, especially if I can get a 2nd pump - temperature based duty control of the pump in my application would be great.

Hopefully this helps someone somewhere someday.

 

So I tried wiring it up in the car today and double checked the service manual. Seems like with the newer pump that black white is ground. Fortunately I tested with low amp fuses.

I would recommend double checking the service manual / wiring diagram for either, I found it on this site. Maybe I messed up with the first pump, but I do automotive wiring for a living.

Fortunately I didn't fry my new pump but I just don't want anyone to make the same mistake by not double checking. A low (2-5a) fuse can help save the pump from reverse polarity. I was running it for a bit today off a 5a fine though. Not sure what the stock rating is.

I'll be doing more testing. It seemed like maybe the pump wanted to turn off after a minute but might have just been my test rig