so one of the youtube channels I watch, mainly for restoring old school ev1 content and happened to pick up a hybrid tahoe and does a good job of showing a practical way of rebuilding a hybrid battery pack using newer low mileage cells from a Toyota rav4.
it does a good job of showing common sense working inside a hybrid battery. not the common for the internet everything will kill you if you look at it without 500$ worth of gear on. no one in the industry actually uses that stuff. but how someone with a bit of common sense can work on these. if you aren't scared to replace a light switch or plug in your house, you have all the understanding needed to safely work on these. don't touch the 2 wires at the same time if they have voltage on them. disconnect and then test before touching.
juat a note because I'm not sure he's 100% clear on the video. the truck had a "new"(there's basically no new at this point, it's all used stuff cobbled together from wrecked cars) battery from a replacement place that went un named, but these trucks have 40 battery modules, the gray things(commonly called cells by scan tools). but the ecm only reads the battery voltage in 20 places, so across 2 cells. what they did for the rebuild is take one bad cell and put it with one good cell. pairs in all 20 spots, so the ecm got a balanced voltage and was happy code wise, but reality it had no capacity and is a very shady way to do this, especially when most of these companies are charging $3k ish for replacement packs. so if you use them, get the longest warranty they offer. from what I can tell here rav 4 pack he bought was 1500-1900$. more for the lower mileage ones.
and also the rav 4 battery cells are the same as the ones used by gm. Just a different amount. tahoe has 40, the rav 4 pack he bought was less, 34 I believe. but I could be wrong on that number. you'll have to Google it. in his case he was completing the 40 needed with some of the good ones from the bad rebuilt pack the truck came with. if you do this you'll have to hope your battery has some good cells, or buy a ftw extra good cells to total the 40 needed for our trucks.
hopefully they makes sense to people researching and after watching. I don't believe it was really clear in the video. needing 40 was taken as common knowledge.
oh and don't clean your bus bars, like he did, kits are super cheap, just get new nickel plated ones with bolts. I think I paid under 20$. get 2 prius kits, cheaper and you'll have extra.
it does a good job of showing common sense working inside a hybrid battery. not the common for the internet everything will kill you if you look at it without 500$ worth of gear on. no one in the industry actually uses that stuff. but how someone with a bit of common sense can work on these. if you aren't scared to replace a light switch or plug in your house, you have all the understanding needed to safely work on these. don't touch the 2 wires at the same time if they have voltage on them. disconnect and then test before touching.
juat a note because I'm not sure he's 100% clear on the video. the truck had a "new"(there's basically no new at this point, it's all used stuff cobbled together from wrecked cars) battery from a replacement place that went un named, but these trucks have 40 battery modules, the gray things(commonly called cells by scan tools). but the ecm only reads the battery voltage in 20 places, so across 2 cells. what they did for the rebuild is take one bad cell and put it with one good cell. pairs in all 20 spots, so the ecm got a balanced voltage and was happy code wise, but reality it had no capacity and is a very shady way to do this, especially when most of these companies are charging $3k ish for replacement packs. so if you use them, get the longest warranty they offer. from what I can tell here rav 4 pack he bought was 1500-1900$. more for the lower mileage ones.
and also the rav 4 battery cells are the same as the ones used by gm. Just a different amount. tahoe has 40, the rav 4 pack he bought was less, 34 I believe. but I could be wrong on that number. you'll have to Google it. in his case he was completing the 40 needed with some of the good ones from the bad rebuilt pack the truck came with. if you do this you'll have to hope your battery has some good cells, or buy a ftw extra good cells to total the 40 needed for our trucks.
hopefully they makes sense to people researching and after watching. I don't believe it was really clear in the video. needing 40 was taken as common knowledge.
oh and don't clean your bus bars, like he did, kits are super cheap, just get new nickel plated ones with bolts. I think I paid under 20$. get 2 prius kits, cheaper and you'll have extra.
