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2009 Prius Project

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Technical Discussion' started by likearaptor, Jul 29, 2015.

  1. likearaptor

    likearaptor Junior Member

    Joined:
    May 3, 2015
    36
    14
    0
    Location:
    Idaho
    Vehicle:
    2009 Prius
    Model:
    II
    As some might know from a post in another thread I have begun a project that has taken me a few weeks to get where I am at and I know I have a few more weeks left to go on it. It all started when I got my first Prius, 4 months ago. It was a 2002 White Prius with 146,000 miles for $2,000. It was a salvage title and the trunk had been replaced from another car. After driving it for three months (really only the first week) I was hooked and had the Prius bug.
    p1.jpg

    A friend of mine buys 3-4 salvaged/wrecked Prii and fixes them up and sells them on the side. He had a 2009 with 78,000 miles with package #6 (loaded with everything) and offered me a good price. The downside was it had been hit by multiple cars from the rear and required major repairs. I myself am not a great mechanic, my dad and brothers are mechanics, so I hoped to use their experience. But I am more than happy to get help from other Prius owners out here as well. And I hope this can help others thinking about doing similar projects.

    So here are some pictures of the car I bought, it has been in a wreck and was not in a drive able state due to the metal rubbing on the rear driver tire.
    14810153_3_I1.jpg

    14810153_4_I1.jpg

    Once my friend got it here he used a hammer and a crowbar and bent the metal away from the tire. The tire was a little low, but after adding air to it it seemed to hold the air (1 month later it still has the same air pressure) and I drove it about a mile to my house.

    To get this fixed I have a donor car that I will be taking the rear part and replacing the damaged one on the first car. Here is a picture of it. It was hit front on, the ICE engine is not in a good shape, it lost all the coolant, but amazingly enough the inverter/traction battery/electric motors are in great shape and move the car.
    2015-07-02 15.14.35.jpg

    So after many weeks I have gutted both cars almost completely, but I still have a few things left to take out. I have around 160+ pictures from both cars documenting where what part goes where and what screws/bolts/clips were used to hold it on. Here are a few pictures of it at it's current state:

    2015-07-18 22.12.36.jpg

    2015-07-19 18.51.32.jpg

    2015-07-25 23.12.16.jpg
    I have taken out the seat cushion and I met with a friend who knows some about making sure the structure integrity and he suggested that we cut the car on the weld seam where the carpet meets underneath the seat cushion. See image above, the line right before the carpet starts. Then cut at the top of the door frame, bottom of the door frame. Then cut along the ridge on the roof (where the black plastic strips slid in to cover weld seams) past to the back, and then cut on the edge of the roof on the back where the top meets the side.

    2015-07-18 10.04.23.jpg

    This would give me the beam that goes across the back of the car (where the back door mounts to) so that can be structurally sound.

    What are other thoughts here on the forum regarding where we are cutting and welding? If we cut in these places the only visible welds would be on the top of the door jamb, bottom of the door jam, and where you open the rear hatchback door. All other welds would be hidden with the seats/carpet/panels. Everything from that line on top of the gas tank back would be removed, including the wheels/axle, and those would be brought over from the gold colored car. I think the only thing we need to be careful with is the brake lines and the fuel pipes to make sure they were disconnected and out of the way when we do the switcheroo.

    Let me know what you think. I'll post more details as I go along. The plan is to do the cutting and welding Tuesday evening. Also does anyone have the measurements/specifications on how to true or plumb a 2009 Prius? The body shops should have it when they repair wrecked cars. I will try to call some
     

    Attached Files:

    Patrick Wong, valde3 and bisco like this.
  2. likearaptor

    likearaptor Junior Member

    Joined:
    May 3, 2015
    36
    14
    0
    Location:
    Idaho
    Vehicle:
    2009 Prius
    Model:
    II
    It's been a busy week, both cars were gutted (seats, fuel tank, lines, etc), last night we cut the gold car in half and tomorrow is when we plan on cutting the other car in half. Our plans changed a little and I will be remove spot welds in various places so we can spot weld it back together. We also found a big C beam in the bottom of the door frame that we will use to our advantage and cut it it smaller and slide it into the frame of the other side so it can be a strong connection point. I took 250+ pictures and videos just from last night's cutting. I also have around 140+ pictures from the Black car identifying what parts go where and 200+ pictures identifying where stuff when where from the gold car. Here are a few so far.

    Prep work / before cutting
    2015-08-05 20.31.22.jpg 2015-08-05 20.44.34.jpg

    Starting to cut roof away from back and sides (Plasma)
    2015-08-05 21.00.35.jpg 2015-08-05 21.10.18.jpg

    Cutting top of door jamb close to the middle pillar (Sawzall)
    2015-08-05 21.26.13.jpg

    Cutting floor out from right behind front seats (Plasma)
    2015-08-05 22.02.13.jpg 2015-08-05 22.02.51.jpg 2015-08-05 22.04.27.jpg

    Smoke from the sound deadening material
    2015-08-05 22.06.10.jpg

    Cutting C beam from the bottom door frame
    2015-08-05 22.35.13.jpg 2015-08-05 22.35.16.jpg

    Separating the halves
    2015-08-05 23.21.47.jpg 2015-08-05 23.31.29.jpg

    Lonely other half
    2015-08-05 23.37.59-1.jpg

    It took us almost 3 hours to move that half of the car off the lift and onto a trailer. It wouldn't shift into Neutral. It acted like it didn't have enough volts from our battery we had hooked up, we tried a booster, and another battery but no go. So we had to drag it along with a come along inch by inch until it was on the trailer. We backed the trailer up underneath the lift so it would be easier.

    Friday when we cut the black car we shouldn't have the same problems. We know where to cut, how to cut it, and to make sure to have charged up batteries since running the brakes use up a ton of energy. I have the brake booster/capacitor box plugged in, in the front so it can help save some energy when pushing on the brake to shift from P to N.

    Next week my plan is to clean the sealant, drill out the spot welds on the lower section of the floor board, remove all paint around the welding areas, and then finally weld the two sides together.

    p.s. Sorry for the ugly cutting on the floorboard, not concerned since we won't be using those pieces in the final project.
     
    #2 likearaptor, Aug 6, 2015
    Last edited: Aug 6, 2015
  3. valde3

    valde3 Senior Member

    Joined:
    Jun 28, 2014
    2,002
    745
    0
    Location:
    Finland
    Vehicle:
    2004 Prius
    Looking forward to seeing the progress.

    If you don’t need the park you can remove the park relay when Prius is in neutral. And then to shut it down you need to put the e-brake on. Prius tech training
     
  4. likearaptor

    likearaptor Junior Member

    Joined:
    May 3, 2015
    36
    14
    0
    Location:
    Idaho
    Vehicle:
    2009 Prius
    Model:
    II
    Thanks. That will help a lot. Our plans have changed and we won't be able to cut the second car until next week
     
  5. likearaptor

    likearaptor Junior Member

    Joined:
    May 3, 2015
    36
    14
    0
    Location:
    Idaho
    Vehicle:
    2009 Prius
    Model:
    II
    So we actually did cut the second car in half rather quickly. We did it on August 8th (2 days after we cut the first one). But this time we used the sawzall more than the plasma cutter and it went a lot faster. We timed ourselves and we actually got it disconnected and pulled apart within 54 minutes :) Not that there are many that we are competing against but we did improve it quite a lot since we knew what we were going to be cutting this time. We used the plasma torch on cutting the roof and the top sides and the sawzall for all of the bottom except for two places in the C frame where we needed to use the plasma cutter to help cut.

    2015-08-08 17.41.06.jpg 2015-08-08 17.41.17.jpg 2015-08-08 17.41.19.jpg 2015-08-08 18.01.23.jpg
    Sorry I didn't take many pictures on the second car. Not too much different other than we did it outside on top of a trailer. This time we just had two pallets sitting underneath the first half and that was it. No chains tying down each half since we knew the front half wasn't going to tip forward and the back half is happy either back or front.

    Then I was guided to drill out all the spot welds along a seam and we would join both halves on this seam. So I took Monday off work and drilled out around 28 spot welds and used 4 bits from harbor freight (made for drilling spot welds) and then I found out I drilled out the wrong seam. I needed to drill out the seam lower on the floor board and not the higher end one.

    2015-08-10 12.14.21.jpg

    So I talked to my friends and we decided to change our mind on how and where we would connect the lower portion and decided to cut that part off and go for a farther back piece on top of the gas tank and overlap the pieces. So I cut off more of the bottom on both sides to get things to line up. Then I worked on measuring the top and cut some of the top beam so that they were close on lining up as well.

    Where final cut was on the back of the good front
    2015-08-10 12.20.48.jpg 2015-08-10 12.20.51.jpg

    We cut open the top of the new beam of the frame that starts near the back and then spreads out to form the back part of the frame, and we were going to rest the new back half on top of this portion to overlap the frame to make it stronger.

    2015-08-10 18.00.28.jpg 2015-08-10 18.00.39.jpg 2015-08-10 21.10.28.jpg

    Pictures of the top cut with the sawzall where the frame is the thinnest and didn't have any reinforcements from the pillars. (I know I cut into my own roof with the sawzall :( it was getting late and I was getting tired)
    2015-08-10 21.11.04.jpg 2015-08-10 21.11.19.jpg 2015-08-10 21.11.45.jpg

    Pictures of the good back half with how the bottom middle area was cut to overlap on top of the other metal in the middle
    2015-08-10 21.21.03.jpg 2015-08-10 21.21.11.jpg 2015-08-10 21.21.13.jpg 2015-08-10 21.21.16.jpg

    The next day I got help from a friend and in 4 long hours we had both halves pulled together and we were ready to weld the frames to hold it together. We were able to get both halves about 3-5 inches away from each other, but we had to hook a come along to the back half and pull it towards the front half to finally get them together. The bottom frames we bent down and out so the top frame could easily sit on top and slide in, and then afterwards we bent the bottom half around the top part.
    2015-08-11 20.25.51.jpg 2015-08-11 20.25.53.jpg 2015-08-11 20.26.06.jpg 2015-08-11 20.26.09.jpg 2015-08-11 20.51.11.jpg 2015-08-11 22.17.43.jpg 2015-08-11 22.17.58.jpg

    We also put a big bolt on each side of the car's frame and used it to pull up both sides as tight as we could. You can see the holes line up pretty good on each side.
    2015-08-12 16.20.00.jpg 2015-08-12 16.20.34.jpg 2015-08-12 16.20.38.jpg

    Now the car is in my driveway getting ready for the final welding. We just welded the main frame on each side, put a bolt in on each side, and then screwed a plate on at the top of door frame since the arch welder we had would burn through the thin sheet metal and we needed to use a different welder. Here at my house I scrapped off the paint around the joints on the top and bottom, added the bake lines from my old half to the new half, connected up the parking brake cables from the back half to the front half, and moved the tires frmo the old black half to my newer gold half so they we together again.
    2015-08-13 20.03.16.jpg 2015-08-13 20.03.22.jpg 2015-08-13 20.03.26.jpg 2015-08-13 20.03.55.jpg 2015-08-13 20.04.00.jpg
    Probably Saturday I will do some welding with my friends and I might do some welding too. The goal is to be finished welding by next week and maybe do some body work on it. Then I go to California for training for work (VMworld for those who are interested, I'm a System Admin/Storage Admin by day) and when I get back I will paint underneath the car, mount the gas tank, hook up all the gas lines and vent lines, connect the brake lines, add the hybrid battery and the 12v and I'll be able to drive it again.

    Then I will drive it to my friends shop and we will work on the body work and paint for a couple of days and then I just have to put all the interior back in and I can finally get this car registered and drive it.

    For fun while it was jacked up while I brushed away the paint and dirt underneath where we need to weld I took some pictures of what a Prius with a lift kit would look like :) Plenty of ground clearance.
    2015-08-17 18.48.36.jpg 2015-08-17 18.48.51.jpg
     

    Attached Files:

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