Quick ? -- pulling hi-volt safety plug necessary when cleaning fan?

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by Stevewoods, Oct 4, 2015.

  1. Stevewoods

    Stevewoods Senior Member

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    Want to tackle cleaning the battery blower fan. Not even thinking I will remove it, just wipe and vac., but we will see.

    So...Instructions in this post Battery Fan Cleaning | PriusChat, as well as a couple of others on this forum say nothing about having to disconnect the hi-volt safety plug to do this, a couple of posts talk about disconnecting the 12V negative and a couple do not

    My Chilton's repair manual says it is a necessity to disconnect the Hi-Volt safety plug and I need special lineman's gloves to do it.

    Whose right?
     
    #1 Stevewoods, Oct 4, 2015
  2. RobH

    RobH Senior Member

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    Easy way to identify hazardous wiring in the Prius is the orange colored insulation. No orange to the fan, so I'd say it's safe to work on. You can look at the orange wires, just don't cut them or fiddle with their connectors without using protection.
     
    #2 RobH, Oct 4, 2015
  3. jdcollins5

    jdcollins5 Senior Member

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    The HV Battery wires come in to the Electronic Module section and land on the top side of the Main Relays. There are no exposed conductors and with car OFF there is no HV on the downstream side of the Main Relays.

    So the short answer is that you can clean the battery fan without disconnecting the Safety Plug but you just need to be extremely careful and stay away from the end closest to the HV battery. The battery fan is located at the opposite end from the battery.
     
    #3 jdcollins5, Oct 4, 2015
  4. Beachbummm

    Beachbummm Senior Member

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    fan is on the other side of the battery where nothing is exposed
    GO
    4
    IT
    :)
     
    #4 Beachbummm, Oct 4, 2015
  5. Stevewoods

    Stevewoods Senior Member

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    Thanks!!

    As usual, you guys are the best! Just one other thing, I am decent on 1967 Fords, these hybrids, not so much, so, when I open this up, the blower is going to be obvious, I assume, and, if I do NEED to disconnect/pull it out, still am not going to light up like Clark Griswold in National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation as long as I am reasonably careful.




     

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    #5 Stevewoods, Oct 4, 2015
    Last edited: Oct 4, 2015
  6. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    there's a good you tube from luscious garage, should have all your answers.
     
    #6 bisco, Oct 4, 2015
  7. Stevewoods

    Stevewoods Senior Member

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    Hi Bisco:

    Thanks for the reply. I did find a blog post from Lucious, but no video. That post was one of the things that made me think I should do the cleaning. The blog post just said it should be done at 60K and no detail how to do it. Only video I found was a Priuschat person and it had no sound and was a bit confusing...mostly because it is very fast paced....although I did appreciate the effort.
     
    #7 Stevewoods, Oct 4, 2015
    Last edited: Oct 4, 2015
    bisco likes this.
  8. bisco

    bisco cookie crumbler

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    sorry, i thought there was more than that. have you searched here? there are quite a few threads. i don't recall anyone ever pulling the plug.
     
    #8 bisco, Oct 4, 2015
  9. jdcollins5

    jdcollins5 Senior Member

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    If you do release and pull the Safety Plug pay very close attention to the orientation of the disconnect switch. If it is not re-installed properly you will get the lights.

    For the Gen 2 I believe you have to slide it up first and then rotate it 90 degrees to remove. Install is reverse. The part everyone misses is to slide it back "down" to lock in position after rotating 90 degrees.
     
    #9 jdcollins5, Oct 4, 2015
  10. dorunron

    dorunron Senior Member

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    jd is 100% correct on R&R of the service plug.

    Here is a PDF file that discusses the service plug on the Gen II Prius.

    FWIW, I don't believe the OP will need to fool with the service plug. Just respect everything and use common sense.
     

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    #10 dorunron, Oct 4, 2015
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