hazelnut

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?

I did the 'no-spill' funnel coolant bleed today - amazing really is no-spill.

I found this on YT: I've got this thingy on order : https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01A2CQSU6 So I should be able to bleed with this. .. I hope ..

So what is the bleed procedure? I just put 2 litres of genuine Lexus premix coolant in, started the car for a few minutes and the heater started warming the cabin. stopped the car, add more coolant, repeated this a couple of times, but feels like I could be doing this all day and topping up. I can't see any leaks, but now I discover the car did overheat some days ago.

Our 2009 GS450h just developed this issue today. I guess you and I must have a leak for this to happen ?

So you are talking about the battery sensor ECU? There's a few on ebay for £150. Is it just a voltage reader ? or does it do balancing as well with internal resistors to discharge the good cells to match the worst?

Hi Steven, You could well be right. It should be easy to figure out the drivetrain power consumption by noting the kWh indication at a given speed. eg 18 kW @ 60 mph => 300 Wh/mile. Not including power to run the gazillion ECUs, which seems to take 18A of 12V power in the Lexus (4 wh/mile) , plus A/C and of course I need to add some kind of heater...

Range is not an issue for me, we have a another GS450h for long trips. But mostly it would be loocal/commute. The range will be dependant on the weight of the batteries. To avoid changing the dynamics of the car too much I plan to fit an equivalent mass of batteries to the engine. According to wikipedia the 2GR-FSE is 174kg. According to my maths the battery capacity would then be around 36kWh. If you assume 300wh/mile => 120 miles. Used batteries for this kWh will run around £3-4k. There is the possibility of adding an extra battery pack where the NiMh battery was, but then things start to get expensive.

The ZombiVerter is a solution by Damien Maguire and others from Open Inverter. It replaces the Hybrid ECU in the car, comes with its own firmware and hardware to talk to the inverter. Damien has a GS450h gearbox in a BMW with MG1 locked, with power going to both MG1 and MG2. On a Dyno his project produces >225BHP out the rear wheels. Given the torque curve of the GS450h gearbox, it should actually be significantly faster 0-60 than a standard GS450h. However that is not my motivation. My motivation is to have a battery electric vehicle that doesn't cost £30k. My reasoning is that why remove the GS450h gearbox from an already great car.

Hi Nicky, Is the A/C control module not built into the A/C compressor? I see you have tried replacing the A/C compressor, but I wonder if the harness is also corroded? I would be tempted to make a test lead that would allow you to easily plug in another known good compressor, from a friends car maybe?

Hi Nicky, My current plan is to remove the engine, and install Large Li-Ion battery along with a ZombieVerter.

No compression on one cylinder in each bank. Anyone need a boat anchor?