Starting a Gen1, after sitting 12months?

Guys, I either bought a goldmine or a landmine for $1500. It's a 2002 Prius, which has been sitting for well over a year now without being started, due the HV Battery failed.

We've dissected the HV Battery and found one of the sense lines so corroded it disconnected, giving a P3030 error code I think. Anyhow we've cleaned up all the bussbars, coated them with "No Ox ID - Special A" , repaired the sense line harness, and are precharging the pack at the moment.

Is there a method of priming the engine in order to get fuel through the system, or am I going to have to try and turn over the engine long enough to get fuel through the system? Of course it would be sitting with a FULL tank. I fear the gasoline has soured to the point the engine won't run on it. I had hoped if that was the case, I could just fill it up with good fuel, but I can't at this point without figuring out a way to drain the tank if it comes to that.

Having an itchy keyswitch finger, I tried to start it after just a few minutes on charge, and the engine only turns over for a couple of revolutions before stopping. Then it throws a P3006 error and stops trying to start. I know I will just have to wait till the pack is fully charged and balanced before going much farther, but I had to try!

 

I think the P3006 has something to do with the battery modules being out of balance.

I continued to charge the entire pack today for 8 hours with a very low amp (something like 350ma) 336~vdc charger "see attached photo". Will let it sit overnight to see where each module self discharges to. I'm sure there will be a few modules that will have to be replaced.

Oddly enough the dash display shows the HV battery now to be 3/4 charged, yet still the engine only turns over for a couple of revolutions and stops. I can keep turning the key off, and back on again and continue, but no engine start. I still get the P3006 code, so I suspect under load some battery modules are not holding up.

I'll try your suggestions from the other posts, when the weather permits. A nice northern just blew in, and I don't like being a COLD shadetree mechanic.

 

HV Battery now somewhat charged, a bit out of balance due to a few cells that won't hold a good charge.

Now, suddenly the engine has stopped turning over, the READY light blinks on/off in tune with a relay in the HV Battery electronics, and then eventually throws a P3006 code.

When my scanguage II arrives are there any suggestions as to what XGuages I should start out with, to see if there are underlying issues other than about 3 weak battery modules?

The first Prius we worked on rebuilding the HV Battery never had a problem starting the engine with weak cells, it would eventually throw the P3006 and then the codes for the weak blocks, yet it would always start.

Wondering if there are codes in other ECU's I'm not seeing with the old scanguage II that doesn't have xguage capability.

Anyone ever have the "READY" display blink on/off while trying to start, and then eventually throw the P3006 code?

 

I didn't write down the voltage of each of the 19 blocks, but most of them were 0.00 volts, only about 8 of them had any voltage that ranged from 6 to 9 volts per block. As a matter of fact, we had to jump start the 0.00 volt blocks with a 12volt battery in order to pump some voltage into them, before our smart charger would even begin to attempt charging.

Yesterday, after the battery sat untouched for 24hrs in freezing weather, these were the readings on the 19 blocks open circuit:

1 - 15.8
2 - 12.4
3 - 12.6
4 - 13.8
5 - 12.4
6 - 13.0
7 - 12.4
8 - 14.3
9 - 13.3
10 - 16.3
11 - 13.6
12 - 13.9
13 - 13.6
14 - 15.6
15 - 14.7
16 - 15.7
17 - 13.3
18 - 16.2
19 - 15.9

 

That's not an option for us.

Simply having the students swap out a battery isn't teaching them anything valuable. If it comes down to it, the worse would be to have them rebuild the old OEM pack with 38 gen2 cells. Which in reality would not be bad as they will learn more in the process, yet cost more for those 38 cells, -vs- just a few of the gen1 cells if we are not able to salvage most of the gen1 cells.

Our previous project car, ended up only needing 2 gen1 cells replaced, and I'm still driving that vehicle today, with almost 10K on the rebuilt pack.

 

UPDATE: We piggybacked a a Pb acid battery pack and capacitor bank onto the oem pack today.

Car started, died a few times, but once was able to get into force charge mode and get the engine warmed up it smoothed out enough to get to a station and force as much premium fuel into the tank as possible. Seems to run and drive fine now. Photos at:

Flickr: M.Barkley's Photostream

Now that we know the car is ok, we plan to rebuild the oem pack with gen II cells.