Bought salvage 2005 Prius with 35,000 miles

Navigation is easy to determine just by visual inspection. Look at the MFD, 4 buttons on the left and 3 on the right = navigation. The other tip off is the DVD navigation unit located under the drivers seat.

The the light assemblies are interchangeable, I know this because my car is also rebuilt and when it was first put together, halogens were put in until I asked them to be changed out to the original HID configuration. You could also choose to not reinstall the fog lights as a way to reduce the cost of the rebuild. Personally I like them and added mine back in myself. My rebuilder (Steve Woodruff, autobeyours.com) gave me the fog light units and I bought the lower grill trim and contributed an afternoon of labor (mostly for wiring trouble shooting and repairs and trim removal for access). You might consider using Steve as a resource for parts and advice as most of his rebuilds start out looking far worse than yours (like mine was… http://www.autobeyours.com/gifs/06 Prius Green 132/green 06 just in 005.jpg). However I think you will find front end parts hard to come by and new replacement parts will be the way to go.

Good luck with your rebuild.

 

Hi wingding, the SOC monitor is part of the "Energy Monitor" screen on the multifunction display (see attachment).

The attached image shows what this display should look like when the battery is being charged from the engine (engine idling and transmission in park).

Notice the battery icon which is showing just two purple bars, this indicates a somewhat low state of charge. It's an 8 bar display. When it show only one or two bars (low charge level) it's purple, with 3 through to 6 bars it displays in blue (normal charge level), with 7 or 8 bars it displays in green (high charge level).

If yours shows purple bars (or even worse no bars at all) then I'd definitely try running it, even if just a few minutes at a time, to build it up to at least 4 bars.

BTW. It is important that the transmission has to be in "P" for it to charge while the car is stationary.

 

I don't think it is a good to run without coolant? May be hard on the pump? ICE will heat up within sec.. I can under-stand were your coming from with your rad. having to be replaced. Is there a chance of the water freezing this time of year. You could put a heat lamp under there if it gets cold? Hal

 

Yes, I think that is a bad idea because the engine head and block are made of aluminum and probably won't withstand abuse of that sort. Since no engine coolant is circulating, it will take a considerable while for the engine temp sensor mounted in the head to register increased temp. The heat produced by the engine block will not be dissipated and circulated via the flow of coolant.

 

Very bad idea. Coolant is why you have little if any mechanical damage, without it you will likely damage the inverter before you do damage to the ICE. They are equally costly to replace. Patrick is also correct, with out the coolant the temp reading will likely be incorrect.

 

Couldn't you just add water and run the engine, then drain it when your done? After all, (a) you can drain the water into the ground, and (b) you only need to charge the traction battery once every two months or so.

Edited to add:

If the radiator leaks, you could just bypass the radiator, fill it with water and run it until the engine gets warm. Then dump the water out until you are need to charge the battery again.

 

Ok, from this post I assumed that you had water in it, even though the entire cooling system wasn't completely functional. If there's not any water at all in it then that's a different thing, don't run it like that! (though btw, I don't think the 2 minutes that you did already run it would have hurt it, the metal parts will easily absorb 2 minutes heat from a cold start).

But you should try to get some water into it so that you can at least run it for 3 to 4 minutes at a time to get some charge on the traction battery. It will only take 10 minutes running (at idle) to get a safe charge level on that battery (not a full charge but enough to keep it out of danger). So even if you have to do it in a number of stages it's worth doing. (BTW it will take a bit longer in stages because for about the first minute it wont do much charging, but after about a minute, with the car in park, it will start giving the battery a nice charge).

If it's been sitting for two years then it could be critically low. It wouldn't be the first case of a perfectly good battery ruined by allowing it to stand too long uncharged.

 

I recovered a Honda IMA battery (NiMH cylindrical like NWH10) that had sat for 10 years. Just took the usual cyclical reconditioning.

I will be very interested to see if Wingding has any problems. Definitely it would be advisable to get the battery up to 6 bars or so before trying drive the car. If only at 1 or 2 bars, I think there is risk of taking the weakest cell to zero under moderate to heavy assist.

 

Coolant fill is a piece of cake with an AirLift. The inverter cooling loop takes less than a minute; the engine loop will take longer due to the thermos. My guess is that it will save you two hours by having the AirLift tool. The coolant you need is Toyota Super Long Life Coolant (SLLC). You can only get that from a dealer parts counter, unfortunately. Perhaps by calling around and saying that you need 3 gallons, you might be able to get a discount.

 

Hi seilerts:
What is a AirLift thing. Are they expensive? Is it a automotive item?
Cheers,
Hal

 

I can help. I also rebuilt a 2005 with front end damage. The traction battery was still good but I depleted it beyond repair by trying to start it when the mass air thingy was damaged. Don't keep trying to start it until all else is repaired,. If you find that you need a traction (hv) replacement There are many available through ebay . I had AUYOBEYOURS from southern Indiana repair my air mass thingy and put in a salvage battery as well as put on front bumper guard( mine) and straighten front frame. Total cost $1,950 I had hood fenders rad. grill headlights and much damage. My total repair was c.4,000 $

 

AirLift by UView http://www.amazon.com/UView-550000-Airlift-Cooling-Checker/dp/B0002SRH5G

$2600 and it is the same color? You might be hard pressed to beat that by buying components separately. Paint is expensive.

 

Wow I've never heard of that happening before.

Are you certain that they're not blue? Some people describe their colors slightly differently depending on light they're viewing it in. Also, perhaps you were expecting the bottom two bars to be a different color to the next four? It doesn't work like that, all bars are the same color. That is, they're either all purple, or all blue, or all green, depending on how many are showing. Take a look at the attached images to see blue and green SOC examples.

I don't know, but if it is six then you're going really well. Six bars is the "nominal" charge level that the car tries to maintain.