Quote:
Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard
...what will be the biggest hurdle to getting this car in running order?..
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UNPROTECTED CIRCUIT BOARDS AND WIRING CONNECTIONS
There are sevel challenges to just fixing up the car back to stock running condition, but I think the biggest one is that there were a LOT of completely unprotected circuit-boards that got the Atlantic Ocean Treatment.
Every four lithium cells have a BMS circuit board on them. That was completely unprotected. Each BMS has a small wire connector with 8 tiny pins on it. Which means there's also a matching wire harness connector 8 tiny pins on it. All of that was soaking in saltwater for a long time.
I'm sure at some point, somebody opened the door on this car, and water literally POURED out. But it all STAYED in the battery pack!
Of the two BMS boards I looked at so far the one was just corroded, but the other had a blown capacitor. Both have four each little teeny-tiny heaters built in for cell balancing. Those are going to be impossible to clean. Each BMS also has a microprocessor on it, and the number of leads going to those things means that each is SO small and close together that I think ANY corrosion recks that.
So that's tons of work, and I'm still just talking about inside the battery pack!
The EV-ECU, Battery-ECU and another important circuit-board or two are under the back-seat, which was the other area that really got nailed with the water damage. Those are in simple plastic cases with ZERO weather-proofing. The Battery-ECU had at least two blown capacitors on it. The other two boards that I pulled weren't as bad, and MAY work, but still have some corrosion on the wire harness pins going to them.
I still don't know the condition at all of the the main car ECU, or several other of the on-board computers.
LOTS of bare circuit boards and plain wire-connectors (things WITHOUT o-rings built in) on this car that got salty.
Body looks great though!
I hope we get a heat wave sometime soon. If it gets above freezing again I can wash the car!
Anything "exterior-related" seems to be in good condition. For example, the car has TWO charging ports on it, a J1772 and a high-speed charging port. Both have a nice locking connector over the top that is spring-loaded and gasketed. There's no corrosion or anything at all in either of those. They look perfect.
If I part the car out, I'll keep the J1772 port for use on the Hybrid Pickup, as there are starting to be a few chargers in my area, but the ones that are are Level 2 only.
A person or two has mentioned to me that this car would make an excellent sleeper, converting it to a high-amp DC setup.
