[DickL]

I own a car and truck frame repair and alignment shop. We have a Honda Insight in for repair. It was hit in the rear hard enough to require a complete frame rail replacement. There is also damage directly under the 144V battery pack. I need to remove the battery pack to do the repair.

I have been unable to find much information about the do's and don'ts of messing with the battery pack but based on all the warnings and the work we have done on other hybrid cars I know it can be tricky.

Can anyone offer suggestions or how-to's, other web references, pictures, etc. that may help?

Other cars we have seen have a fuse that can be removed to lessen the danger. Can anyone help with locating and removing this fuse?

I'll be in contact with a local Honda dealer tomorrow but I thought I'd take a chance and run this question by all of you.

TIA

Happy New Year!

 

[Rick]

I believe your refering to the Prius "plug" you can pull out to disconnect the battery. Honda's are a little bit different. First, pull up the rear carpet (it literally just lifts up, there are two pop clips that might be kind of holding it in place). There is a little cover on the drivers side, remove the 2, 10mm bolts that hold this cover on. This will expose the circuit breaker. There a little red plastic sleve over the switch that has to be slipped off upward then you can throw the breaker. Your supposed to wait ~10 minutes for it to bleed off any existing electrical charge, but it will take you longer than that to remove the box cover anyways.

From there there's a bolt inside the breaker area that has to come off, plus you have to remove all the styrafoam blocks surrounding the box, and then about 20 other torx bolts, so this will take you more than enough time for the system to discharge itself. After you break the box open it's best to check for voltage before touching anything.

If your shop happens to be in the Phoenix area I'd be happy to offer you the use of my service manual.

 

[DickL]

On the right track

Nope, we're up here in the frozen Midwest but I do appreciate your offer.

We have the cover off and the breaker thrown before we left the shop tonight. I guess I was wondering about the next steps of physically removing the whole battery pack.

It sounds like the bolt in the breaker area is next followed by the foam blocks. Any suggestions or precautions with the foam blocks? I presume that once the foam blocks are removed the torx bolts will reveal themselves as will the end of the HV cable?

Any pictures or additional advice is welcomed. Thanks so far for your help.

Dick

 

[Insightful Trekker]

From there there's a bolt inside the breaker area that has to come off, plus you have to remove all the styrafoam blocks surrounding the box, and then about 20 other torx bolts, so this will take you more than enough time for the system to discharge itself. After you break the box open it's best to check for voltage before touching anything.

Not sure if the above will be clearly understood Rick.

The batteries won't discharge simply because the main switch is off. There will still be "live" 144v a several points within the IMA case. And the case's base is the body floor pan so if repairs are needed in this area the entire IMA system has to be removed by component. Be CAREFUL what you touch in this operation.

A professional using common sense and extra care should be "safe" in doing the job. But someone that isn't familiar with electricity and the consequences of doing something wrong probably shouldn't open the case.

See my post in the old thread for a general R&R description:

http://www.insightcentral.net/forum/vie ... 53f45b7cd7

ANY bolts that thread into the aluminium body are Dacro coated (greenish tint) to prevent galvanic corrosion (and prevent the aluminum threads from ripping out when removed) The Dacro coating will not provide protection for more than one use.

The Factory SM is the minimum required book. If your really on good terms with your local Honda dealer the Insight technician's training manual has some good procedural R&R advice too.

HTH!

 

[Yves M.]

I moved the question to the problem forum as it is more appropriate here.

I might be mistaking but my belief is that the battery pack wires are not +144v and 0v but one wire is -72v and the other is +72v. The pack middle connection is close to the ground of the body. If so, both wires are dangerous. There are big capacitors in there somewhere and there could be voltage anywhere even with the battery disconnected.
So wear rubber gloves and put insulating tape to all loose connections

Looking at the service manual, it seems pretty simple (for a complexe car). Like said before, remove the carpet, put the breaker to Off. Remove the cover (lots of bolts) and check that the orange cable next to the breaker are at less than 0.1 volt. If not, there is a problem and current, stop there.
Else, with less volt, remove the frame over the battery, disconnect the orange hi-volt cables and put tape on them.
Remove the air duct bolts in the back, remove the mounting bolts around the pack. Disconnect the wires and harness to the junction board.
Then lift up the pack BUT they show a tool that bolts to the pack to have some handles to bring it up. I do not think that it is absolutly necessary as it is not very heavy.

Two guys to lift it up. I would simply bolt a chain to the pack instead of their tool. Holding the chain would be enough I guess. There are 6 bolts to hold up the pack (4 corners and two in the middle)

 

[Rick]

Sorry, I've never gotten further than taking the cover off to just look. But what John and Yves said is right.