hazelnut

Today I swapped the 2006 HV battery into the 2009 GS450h. Good news is there was no weird firmware rejection issue. However, a few miles down the road on the way to the MOT the dreaded engine light came on. After a small moment of quiet contemplation I hooked up my laptop and Techstream. With the car running my V17 Battery Block had been recorded as "Minimum Batt Block No" with "Batt Block Minimum Vol" around 15 Volts, when all the other Blocks are very close to 16.70 Volts. But the V17 Block was reading fine. I kept looking, and then suddenly the V17 voltage dropped to 15.50 Volts, then about 30 seconds later returned up to 17.2V being the highest in the pack. Anyone seen this odd behaviour? PS. here is my working theory. 1) Assume all the Blocks are OK. 2) assume V17 wiring loom is dodgy. If the loom connection is faulty, and the BMS has some kind of balancing resistors it can switch in, then a high voltage in V17 would trigger the balancing resistor to be engaged, but this drops the observed voltage as the loom is a bit dodgy. This would explain the sudden change between the two voltages seen.

Yes, I think I do.

Some time later...I did end up rebuilding the battery in my 2006 GS450h with the 'B' cell set. But sadly the engine had a timing failure. About six months later my 2009 GS450h HV battery failed, as always seems to happen the middle cells of the pack read very low. So the question is can I simply swap the 2006 pack into the 2009 ? Or do I have to tear them both down and swap the BMS box as well ? Both HV assemblies have the same Toyota/Lexus part number.

Do you have a picture of the part you need?

Sort of. Dreaming about removing the engine and fitting a big Li-Ion battery...

This is what I ended up doing. However I required a lever and it took all my effort to for the entire day to move it 5 meters. such high rolling resistance, and such a heavy car.

I do have a set of four dollies, but this takes much more effort than you'd think. I have called a couple of local car transporters see what solutions they can offer.

Sadly, there is no 'EV' button on a 2006 GS450h 😞

Is it possible to move a GS450h around with a dead engine, just using the hybrid battery? I only need to move a few dozen meters? I have techstream, and a charged battery, but the engine has a timing issue. If I can't do this the car may have to be scrapped 😞

I noticed at some tyre places they seat the tyre using very high pressure for a small amount of time - you can hear the 'bang' as the tyre bead seats. I guess it is possible this could damage the tpms sensor in some way due to the shock wave this seating method creates. I have no evidence whatsoever to support this, so please take with a very large pinch of salt. Alan, as an experiment you could try swapping out the repaired wheel for the spare for a short time to see if the problem is with that wheel, or it is a systematic error.

I braved the cold and hooked up the new toy, pumped it up to 10psi, then came back 5 mins later - still at 10psi. While there I swapped the cap as I could hear wheezing while I squeezed the top hose. Still had the wheezing with the alternate cap. No crusty under the water pump, and no obvious leaks anyplace.

Thanks guys. I've bought this draper pressure test set. Sealey VS0013 Cooling System Pressure Test Kit 10pc | eBay I have an entire spare car to swap parts over, so I am hoping it is either the radiator / pump or cap. I have previously had a car with an annoying slow leak that was really hard to spot. Turned out to be the radiator, I only found it by getting the car really hot so the coolant was pressurised.

I've been using this funnel a lot lately. I'd rather fix the leak but I can't find it. Is there a cunning way to add pressure to the system when cold ?

Just did a quick 'swap' in of another unit, and the illumination on that one is good. Swapped back to the 'suspect' display and issue returns. So conclusion is the display unit is at fault, Grom is OK, and fuses are OK.

5 months in, and the clock has now stopped working, and the illumination to some of the switches in this multi-display are no longer lit either. The radio and the Grom V2 all work fine, as does the display. Does this sound like a display fault, or a Grom wiring fault or some other fuse?