Red triangle troubleshooting

Hello, This is my first Prius I'm familiar with older toyota vehicles. I just bought this prius with 244,xxx miles off a good friends of mine. The car was cruising on the highway then all power shut off. Just the blinkers, headlights worked. And they said there was a strong smell of OZONE (like a copy machine for reference) and electrical burn. They googled reseting the Computer by disconnecting the 12v battery for a minute so they did and nothing changed. When I got there to help them I did smell something electric burned faint sell but there, no burnt wires visible.I checked every fuse until AM2 15amp fuse came out burt. I replaced that fuse and power came back on when pushing the start button BUT with the red triangle lit along with almost all other warning lights, including brake light and a little red car icon with exclamation sign on the LCD monitor and the car does not move or engine start. The High voltage battery shows 2/3 bars full on the energy display.

I connected an OBD2 wifi and DASHCOMMAND APP on my IPAD. I goes into the diagnostic and reads "no codes present" and 3 out of the six monitors are ready. I did a clear codes command and right after the word "problem" was displayed briefly on the cars navigation display. clear it again and it displayed it again mean while the red trinagle and warning lights remained on.

I tried to put the car in diagnose/inspection mode (the thing with pushing the gas pedal twice and neutral, gas pedal twice, ect.) but it did not start the engine or anything after the last push of the start button in the procedure it turned off like normal. I tried it five times and same result.

I disconnected the high voltage battery orange plug and 12v battery and let it sit for a week then came back and reconnected things and same condition red triangle no movement.

I just happened to have an an extra inverter cooling pump, I unplugged the old one just from the electrical plug and tried to start it same condition. I plugged in the wire connector to the spare pump and tried top start the car, the spare pump spun but same red triangle no movement condition. I left the old pump disconnected and hooked up the OB2 ipad app to see if I would get a code for it being completely disconnected but no codes found.

What would be the next thing to troubleshoot? Is there a better app to diagnose the hybrid system? I've seen a lot of prius cars at the local self serve junk yards so parts are there but what is the part it needs?

 

@TMR-JWAP Orange lever verified on properly, High voltage battery shows up in the energy display with 6 bars of energy. I don't have techstream, I'm not familiar with it but will re-search it. Which battery should I disconnect for one minute the big hybrid battery or the little 12v battery?

@JC91006 what makes you think the old pump is shorted? the AM2 fuse is stable and only blew once at the loss of power on the freeway it has not blown again since. Yes the orange HV battery is connected properly and battery shows up in the energy display with 6 bars of energy.

The "BRAKE" dash light also stays lit, but the parking brake is not engaged and it is at the full mark on the master cylinder, the only time I've seen that light on toyotas is when the parking brake is engaged or it is very low on brake fluid.

 

That's the thing I did in fact replace the fuse the first time and has NOT blown again, even with the pump connected or disconnected. I did see that it's a common problem and all of those people did keep blowing the fuse but mine did not. I can't smell the burt smell any more it has been a week. I'll swtich out the pump on monday and find out for sure, I'd be more confident (and happy) that it was the inverter pump if it kept blowing the AM2 fuse but it does not.

I also have a spare connector to the Inverter pump I could do a test of applying 12 volts directly and listen to in spin with a mechanics stethoscope could I not? or watch it smoke? or be completely dead?

 

OK I disconnected the 12v battery for one minute.
Placed my foot on the brake and pressed the power button ONE time>(dash lights came on with RED triangle see uploaded file). kept my foot on the brake and pushed the power button one more time and the dash turned off.

 

Thank you for going to the trouble of replicating that scenario. I will take pics of the safety disconnect in the morning. In a you tube video they had the pruis electrical system on a peg board and they mentioned that the orange disconnect had a non-replaceable fuse in it if it blew the whole disconnect plug thing had to be replaced. I should be able to test the safety disconnect out of the battery for continuity right?

I will also swap out the inverter pump.

 

@TMR-JWAP I took off some of the battery shielding to get a good picture of the safety disconnect. See upload.
Yes I'm getting tech stream and waiting for the mini VCI connector in the mail.

 

@bisco you have a keen eye, I missed step three. I did step 3 'slide it down' and still red triangle but the I re-disconnected the 12v battery for a minute like @TMR-JWAP described and the system re-set and it started. Thanks for everyone's help! there is so much I don't know about this prius.