Hello my name is Professor John Kelly, and this is the Weber Auto YouTube channel in this episode we are going to completely disassemble a 2017 Chevrolet bolt with a B lithium-ion battery pack Sitting right here behind me is a 57 kilowatt hour battery pack from our brand new 2017 Chevrolet bolt I have a previous video on removing this battery pack which was actually pretty simple to do But now we are going to take the cover off of this thing and completely Disassemble it but before we disassemble this battery. There are a few Corrections I need to make to things that I said in the video on removing the battery Thanks to feedback from viewers like you there are a few things I realized that I said wrong and/or were incorrect So to understand what I said wrong all we need to do is look at the front of the battery so over here this electrical connector on the passenger side of the battery this small electrical connector I told you that this is where the battery receives its charge when you plug in the charger, so That is only true if you are using a Jay 1772 compliant level 1 or level 2 charge Connector where it uses AC voltage either the 120 volt or 208 or 240 volt AC connection from your wall like you would have at home, or at a level 2 charging Station somewhere if you are at a DC quick charge station if you have that option on your bolt Then it will have a DC combo connection which will have two more wires down below here and if you look at this picture of a bull charged receptacle with DC quick charge and without DC quick charge you can see the difference there If you have the DC quick charge option on your vehicle Then the high voltage battery is not charged through that small connector It is charged through the large two wire connector that when driving down the road feeds current to the inverter to drive the traction motor But when you're stopped and in the charge mode we have current go backwards through those two large high-voltage cables to charge the battery okay one clarification that needs to be made as far as a first design bolt battery or a second design bolt battery Apparently they're early Releases of the Chevrolet bolt had one design of a battery So there is a first design battery a second design battery the second design battery went into all bolts after a certain VIN number And the way you can tell if you have a first design battery or a second design battery. There's two ways that I've seen That you can tell If your vehicle it was made before the vehicle identification number break point where they installed the new battery anyway One way it would be rather difficult to see but it would is the coolant connectors at the front of the battery now I forgot to mention in the battery removal video that I had already removed the under car cover There's a great big under car cover that covers all underneath the traction Motor this the steering rack and the front of the battery with all the electrical connections and the coolant hoses all of that is fully protected from Road salt and debris and everything as you drive down the road I had taken that cover off I forgot to mention that But once that cover is off then you can see these coolant ports so right here the two coolant fittings the inlet and the outlet On the first design battery both ports look like this inlet port on the left There is not a mail outlet port. It's a female outlet port. They're both female connections at the battery itself So that's one way to tell I just realized there might be a third way to tell and that is just simply the label There's some labels on the battery if you crawl underneath your vehicle and look at the back of the battery There's a label back there that says Vista 2.0 on this newer Design battery. I don't know what it says on the First designed battery, I have not seen the the label on one of those, but I suspect it It's going to be different than the Vista 2.0 so For what it's worth. There's two designed batteries if you have an early design battery Beware that you may have an issue where reports greater range Then you actually have and you might actually run out of range while driving Unexpectedly it'll suddenly drop if it were mine. I'd be visiting a dealer to see What the policy is on? Installing a new battery new design battery for you All right well enough of the Corrections and clarifications Let's take this thing apart all right the first step of disassembling this battery is to take the cover off There are fifty five zero bolts the hold the cover on and then there's a seal in between there I'm going to take the bolts out without any protective personal equipment And then I'm going to get my personal protective five elite gloves on and get somebody to help me lift this cover off Because from that point forward everything inside of here is is high-voltage It doesn't matter if we've removed the service plug or not because all that does is protect us from getting chocked outside the the battery housing Once we open this up. It's high-voltage all the time everywhere. I'm going to use an electric impact Gun to remove these bolts because it's fast But I am NOT going to just give it full throttle and rip the bolts out One by one When you use an impact gun on anything you need to back the bolts out really slowly just in case a thread starts to get pulled and Damaged some threads, so let me get these taken out and then we'll get the cover removed There are six bolts they'll hold the cover around the service plug connector Just take the whole thing because it's I'm sure it's not very heavy so let's Okay straight up over You got it, okay Nice all right while you're here See if this seal Let's take the seal off Keep it over there - cool Okay, we've got the cover off of this monster It's quite beautiful to see inside Let's take a look around inside this battery before we disassemble anything Okay, starting here at the front of the battery We can see the two coolant connections, and if we look inside You can see Some coolant hoses going to different coolant plates That are underneath the batteries that appears There are five battery sections and ten battery modules in this battery The large high voltage connector right here comes in and this big assembly right here is where all the high voltage Contactors the pre-charge contact or the pre-charge resistor the charged Contactors I Believe are in there. We'll get that a pardon and see that We can see another coolant line going down to a coolant plate we can see the two low-voltage connections coming in on this black harness that goes over to the battery the battery energy control module I believe So anything in black tape is typically low voltage any of these orange bus bars here are the high voltage connections You can see one battery section right here where it has This half is one battery module that half is the other battery module I? Believe you have to replace the entire battery section Rather than an Individual module, but we'll look deeper into that as we go so There's two battery sections Three battery sections And then back here we have two battery sections stacked on top of each other With the battery energy control module at the top monitoring all of the individual cell voltages the temperatures of the batteries And so on Here in the back of the battery We can see the lower coolant plate and a hose going to the upper coolant plate on the stacked set Sets of battery sections So we've got one two three Coolant hoses going up two different coolant plates on the upper battery section We've got our high voltage disconnect Connector right here that takes our high voltage battery and and from what I saw in the service manual schematic splits the battery in half So we take a three hundred and fifty point four volt battery and divide it in half So now we have two one hundred and seventy five point two volt batteries Electrically inside here All right Coming around the other side just more of the same it appears There is a special service tool that goes with the engine hoist that will grab each battery Section and lift it out once we get it disconnected All right, I've got my insulated tools, we're going to start disassembling Anytime I disassembled anything the way, I stay organized is I use Ziplock bags the heavy-duty freezer bags to keep everything together any any piece I take off the piece the bolts they all go in a bag and Typically give get labeled so that later on Even if it's a year down the road When I put something back together, there's no confusion about what goes where? okay, so we pulled off the electrical connector for the large two wire Connection at the battery as you can see here. We have The high voltage terminals sticking out that did not come off with the connector Okay now that I've got the contactor cover off or the relay assembly cover off I can take off the AC charging connector at the Relay I Will put those nuts back So we know where they go Then we've got four bolts they'll hold the connector to the housing All right here is our charge cable when you use the AC powered charger with the positive and negative terminals marked Right there okay our next step is to remove the relay Assembly the contactors as I like to refer to them To remove this relay assembly I've got to remove these two terminals in the front that went to our large electrical connection and then we've got two bus bars that connect the entire battery pack to the relay Center So we'll undo the bus bars So this is our positive terminal and that makes this the positive bus bar and the overall positive terminal of the entire battery and then the lower Terminal here is their negative and that makes this the overall negative terminal of the entire battery pack so all 350 point 4 volts Which is the nominal voltage? It'll be higher than that when it's fully charged lower than that one is discharged But that's at three point six five volts per cell the nominal voltage We have the negative terminal we have the negative contactor we have the positive terminal the positive contactor. We have the pre-charge contactor the pre-charge resistor, and then I believe this one is the charger when we plug in the charger we have to have a contactor to connect the charger to the battery positive also So now we need to take these bus bars off the two bus bars the negative Bus bar right here and the positive bus bar right there Before we can take out the relay Center To remove these bus bar covers. There's just some little tabs on the side. We just come in with an insulated screwdriver Pop out the tab on each side and flip open the little lid so we can get to the bolt We're gonna need this bus bar off also There we go And I'll break those nuts loose If you hold down bolts for the relay assembly We can't get to one of the hold down bolts for the relay assembly without taking this bus bar off here Get that out of the way So here's our negative Essentially the negative cable of the overall battery to the relay assembly Take this bus bar off this bus bar connects in series one battery module with another one and Then our positive bus bar Comes off next that's essentially the positive battery cable for the entire battery right there And we've got two more bolts two more nuts that hold the hold the relay Center Or the relay assembly down So now we'll take off all the nuts they'll hold the relay Center to the bottom tray here Believe, that's all the nuts Then we have looks like one Electrical connector right here it has a white terminal position assurance or connector position assurance clip slide that back Pinch down unplug it and now I think we can just lift the whole Relay Center up and out a Lot of pieces in here big heavy contactors Current sensors And so on we will look at this in more detail in a little bit. There's fuse here also To see what is serviceable do you have to replace the entire unit or can you go in and replace? Individual pieces like you can in the Chevrolet Volt We'll find that out But for now, let's get this out of the way Okay, before we continue disassembly of the battery I Finally received the adapters. I needed to drain the coolant out of the coolant plate that cools these battery sections Now just for clarification The cooling system on the Chevrolet bolt battery uses the general motors Dexcool Coolant, that's the same coolant that they use for their radiators for their engine systems It's the same coolant that's used in the other two reservoirs on this Chevrolet bolt one for the traction motor and the other one for the power electronics cooling So there are three different cooling systems on this bolt they all use the same GM Dexcool Coolant ok the special service tool to remove the coolant which I already had for the chevrolet volt battery is the Kenmore vac and fill System, but it uses some special adapters to connect to the battery on this Chevrolet bolt Okay, so there are two coolant hoses hooked to the battery we have the inlet here on the left the outlet on the right there are two Adapters to connect our vacuum tank to the battery We've got one adaptor here that goes in the inlet We're not going to put the adaptor on the outlet yet the inlet has a Quick Connect fitting that allows our vacuum tool to come in and connect and Then we use shop compressed air We run the compressed air across the little venturi it creates a vacuum And if there's any coolant left in this battery we will see it come through this hose, right? Here and the procedure is to turn on the valve and let the vacuum pull what coolant it can out of the battery until there's a fine mist and Then we will use the other adapter here to plug to plug the outlet and let vacuum build up in the coolant plate, and then remove the plug and that surge of air coming in Is supposed to blow out any remaining Coolant that's still in the coolant plate And we're supposed to repeat that several times until we have gotten out as much coolant as we can okay Let's turn on this vacuum valve and see what happens. This is going to be noisy Here comes the coolant Okay, we'll stop there for a minute and see if our tank is full Yeah, it's pretty close. Let me drain it a little bit here this system holds 7.1 liters of coolant a Lot more than I expected Alright let's run the vacuum a little bit more Okay now we plug the other we plug the outlet Let vacuum level build up inside the coolant plate And we'll pull off this plug and we'll expect to see more coolant come out of here There we go got a little bunch Do it again Pull it off again You know it's more coming out Since we keep getting spurts of coolant out of there I think that the battery must be tilted back a little bit I'm going to tilt it on its holding table a little bit forward now So I tilted the front end down just a little bit See if that will help get the rest of it out All right on the back back of this tool here We have graduated measurements and when it was sitting flat on the ground it showed that we had approximately 3.8 liters of coolant additional coolant that we got out of this battery so that means out of the 7.1 liters of coolant total 3.8. Was still in the in the battery that leaves what? 3.3 liters that we got out when we drained the coolant out of the pump the reservoir of the hoses and What would come out of the? The battery when we disconnected the inlet and the outlet hoses underneath the vehicle so that's a pretty good amount of coolant To get back out All right, well if we had to drain that coolant next Because the step after this is to undo these coolant hoses Inside and we don't want coolant running all over inside the battery so we got out as much as we could without spending all day there pulsing the system vacuum so let's proceed with Disassembly Okay, now that most of the coolant has been drained out of the battery coolant plate in the bottom of this housing we can disconnect The hoses that connect the cooling plate To the two fittings on the front of the battery here They are a very large nut the socket that I have that fits that is a 1 and 5/8 inch And then I'll hold the inside fitting from rotating with a Screwdriver Okay, that one's loose And that one's loose So here's the big nut for the Inlet and another knot just like it for the outlet Okay, so here's our first This is our outlet hose Here's one of the inlets You have to pull up on the hose and Then squeeze in on some tabs. I can't reach the tab on the inside I can reach it on the outside So I'm using an insulated screwdriver on the inside And we've got a bracket that holds that down And here's our holes lost a little bit of coolant all right I better clean up that coolant before I Track it all over the place When you're working with high-voltage personal protective equipment It needs to be kept dry We don't want to have coolant coating the gloves or any of the tools Because it can become Conductive, I don't see any more drips in the Battery housing Okay our next step is to remove these battery modules I want to start with battery modules four and five in the very back of the battery here This is battery module one right here two three fours on the bottom in the back and then five is on the top We are going to take off battery module five with the battery energy control module B EC M on the top and our service Disconnect lever connector our harness and then undo the bolts that hold the battery modules in and Take them out one by one so let's move to the back of the battery okay to remove any of these battery modules one of the first steps it tells us to do is to remove the Wire harness that connects the battery energy control module to each of the battery cells Through these orange wires these are the individual voltage monitoring of each battery cell Cell pack there's actually three battery cells welded in parallel in each cell pack Then we also have in this black wire harness here the low-voltage Electrical connections, and we are to undo those also, but there's a warning a very specific warning. That's very much like the Chevrolet Volt Battery energy control module warning and that is don't disconnect anything out there wire harness wise without disconnecting the B ECM first and the reason for that is the B ECM is in charge of balancing the individual cells, and if you unplug The wrong wire harness at the wrong time it can the B ECM which receives its power from these batteries Can be tricked into thinking there's an imbalance and it can try to? balance something that that can't be balanced and that can actually cause internal damage and would have to be replaced so there's There are eight electrical connectors on this B ECM. They must be undone in a specific order This electrical connector right here the low-voltage one is the first one So it has a little connector position assurance clip we pull out and then a tab and Unplug it number two is the other low voltage one on the other side Which is just like that one connector position assurance clip pull down and unplug Now one thing you need to understand about the the bolt with a B battery here is that this? everything on the passenger Everything on the driver's side of the battery is mirrored on the passenger side of the battery With the exception of the B ECM so the battery sells the wire harness everything on this side looks the same as this side Alright, so then we disconnect so that was one two three four or five, so let's get these undone next I Don't want to pull on the wire the wires themselves we wanted to pull on the connector Connect your position assurance clip press the release tab and then Rock get the connector out Okay And then on this side, this is six seven and eight in that order so we'll undo the connector position assurance clip on each one of those first And then depress the locking tab and rock out The connector Just like that now with the be ECM disconnected We can disconnect all of the orange and black harnesses on each side of the battery, so I'm going to do that next All right, we will start with the low voltage harness the black harness here in that harness We have the two low-voltage connections at the front of the battery We have a temperature sensor at the end of most of these battery modules And then we have some pressing tabs that hold the harness in a bracket so I believe we just squeeze in and pull up on the thermistors temperature sensors for the battery Will carefully rock out The harness clip I'll get the high voltage one while we're here And we need some Torx bits for that Looks like there are four number 20 Torx bit edy screws that hold the low-voltage harness To the battery case Okay, so here's our low-voltage harness the two electrical connections at the front of the battery Bring that back here Now we will disconnect the high voltage Monitoring circuits They have a terminal position assurance clip or connector position assurance clip Okay, I've got on the driver's side. I've undone the hive elite Battery cell monitoring circuits here for all Five modules battery modules on the driver side there's five more on the other side So we'll set that off to this side and go get that side down the passenger side This site's going a little faster now, I know what I'm doing The first time you take anything apart, it's It's a learning process Even as good as the service information instructions are it's Not the same as being there doing it Temperature sensor another temperature sensor and one more the harness retainers Alright, we've almost got everything removed harness wise just a few more retainers All right, here's our high voltage harness for the driver's side low voltage harness Here's our high voltage harness for the passenger side chassis ground for the V ECM Our low voltage side The only connector left on the low voltage side now is the high voltage interlock circuit. That's part of the electrical Service disconnect lever So we'll Remove that next All right, we just have two ten millimeter nuts That connect the driver's side of the battery pack to the passenger side of the battery pack through the service disconnect look And then up comes our service disconnect with the low voltage harness So even though, this is the high voltage disconnect There is a low voltage harness right here this black wire that Connects to it that monitors on That white connector in there on those two terminals To see if the service disconnect lever it has been unplugged And if it has been unplugged then the entire system is disabled and the vehicle will not operate Alright our next step is to remove the battery energy control module Just has a couple little tabs Hold it in place And then it pulls out Okay the next step of the disassembly is to undo all of these orange bus bars these bus bars connect the positive terminal Of one battery module to the negative terminal of the next battery module and put them all in series all the way around until We get the 350 point 4 volt nominal voltage not fully charged battery so battery section 1 and 3 are the same Part. You could interchange. Those if necessary battery section 2 is flipped around backwards and It's a different part number battery sections 4 and 5 are different part numbers, and they have Fewer cells in them. They're a little bit narrower down here. There's these three battery sections We have six Battery modules each rated at five point nine four kilowatt hours the two battery sections in the back I don't know their kilowatt hour rating yet It appears that on the driver's side of those two back battery sections that the right-hand side of those is the same length same number of cells and Probably five point nine four kilowatt hours on the driver's side, but the passenger side is significantly narrower It's missing I believe Well, I don't know how many we'll find out that's either one or two cell packs and a cell pack is three cells wired in parallel with each other so We will get these orange bus bars off next then get the shield or get the brackets off of the battery in the back there the battery modules, and then we can see what the rating is and loosen up all the brackets to hold these modules in place one at a time and lift them out with a special lifting fixture, so let's get these bus bars off next By the way this this shiny top and bottom to these battery packs is a heat transfer piece of material it's Probably aluminum Since aluminum is such a good thermal conductor, but I don't know for sure. I'll have to see if a magnet sticks to it But it it's that way underneath where it contacts the coolant plate To transfer the heat out of the battery cells Okay our next step is to remove the brackets the whole battery section number five here on to the battery section four bracket and The lower case Okay, we got the two rear brackets off now we do the front brackets Alright, I'm going to lift the cover off this upper battery section section number five And then we can finally see what the killer what our rating is on the smaller battery section Over there Alright, just as I suspected the longer half of battery module five is the same five point nine four kilowatt hour rating of the battery sections one through three however The shorter section over here is rated at four point seven five Kilowatt hours, and the battery module number four below it has the shorter section on the driver's side the longer section on the Passenger side that means for those of you who insist this is a sixty kilowatt hour rated battery The labels disagree with you so that means that we have one two three four five six seven eight Battery modules at five point nine four kilowatt hours so five point nine Five point nine four times eight gives us 47.5 to kilowatt-hours and then we have to at 4.75 Which gives us nine and a half kilowatt hours, and if we add that to the previous calculation Then that gives us exactly 57 point zero two kilowatt hours So I don't know where the 60 kilowatt hour rating came from it's clearly marked. It's 57 on the cover you add up the The battery modules and that's 57 exactly Okay, well enough about the kilowatt hour ratings Now we have some bolts on each side They'll hold the battery module down and then we can lift up this battery module and see the coolant plate below it and See the heat transfer plates on the bottom that I predict look just like these ones here on the top Okay, so three bolts here on the left Three more bolts on the right And now we're ready to lift it off okay, we're ready to bring in the battery lifting crane and Attachment to pull it up the service information tells us that as we lift this battery section up That we need to go slowly because as a sticky compound where it connects to the thermal plate I imagine it's some sort of a heat sink compound Just says it's sticky We'll see why it's sticky. I guess I just assume it's a heat sink compound, but maybe not let's let's find out Okay, this is the official bolt battery section lifter the bolt as we've seen has two different widths of battery sections So this battery section five here that we are going to lift off has some holes right here and right here That the little fingers on the end of this Lifting fixture are going to come in and grab, but I have need to move it in a notch First Right there this center piece right here that slides back and forth has a little lip on it And it's going to slide into this hole right here somewhat near the middle of the battery so that needs to be on the other side, so I'm going to rotate around the battery Lift for the moment and then we'll let it down and get it connected I Got it hooked on this one side on the passenger side Let's slide this Center fixture over let it down a little more Slide that Center over a little more and then down some more So we've got quite a gap over here, so we'll have to adjust the width of the tool It's like it's got to go in to the innermost one on this side I've got to let it down just a little bit more Okay We've got the battery look battery section lift connected on The driver's side the passenger side in the center. I need to Snug up that Center keep it from sliding Lock the center fixture in place And now we are ready to lift okay now a concern when lifting here is That remember, this is a 1,000 pound battery so If there are five sections, and they were all equal. What's there not these two were a little bit lighter We are taking out somewhere near 200 pounds and of course the bracketry in the bottom housing or include 1,000 pounds So that means when I lift this up Since this battery is balanced on the center of gravity on this holding table That the battery could tip forward. Well. We don't want it to tip forward of course I'm going to get some stools to put it under the corners of the battery Okay, here's my logic here with the stools this battery weighs a thousand pounds if I put four stools one under Each corner that's only 250 pounds per stool these stools can easily hold a 250 pound person And we're not going to put the whole weight of the battery I don't we're just going to put a little bit on there to keep it from tipping as we lift out these battery Sections so I think we'll be just fine I'm going to lift up Okay, and we'll come down All right, I've got the stools installed under the four corners of the battery. Let's lift this section up and out of here Okay here we go Left in slowly I can hear some popping As it's releasing from the Thermal plate below. I'll lift it up a little bit more There it's coming a Little bit more So there's not a heat sink compound. It's a mat. That's under there Our Center fixture there appears to be bowing just a little bit I must not have it, it's snugged up enough The bottom of the battery looks just like the top of the battery as far as the heatsink Material Okay, we are going to sit battery section number five down on my workbench here I'm going to readjust this tool here in the middle See if that helps any Yeah a little bit Okay with battery section five removed we can see the coolant plate sort of Except it's covered with this sticky I'm sure it's a thermal transfer Material I don't know what what that is. I will need to investigate in the service information about reinstalling the battery section as far as Do you need to replace this? Where's the reusable as long as it's not damaged? What's the story there? I need to find that out The battery section below it battery section number four is just like the one that we took off except. It's flipped around backwards Now let's go look at the battery section that we removed okay? We've got battery section number five here that has battery to battery modules in it I don't know their battery module numbers yet. I need to look those up But the battery module on the driver's side has One two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen Fifteen heat sink bars and On the passenger side it has one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve so three battery Packs which are Three battery cells welded in parallel with each other Feuer is what it appears to be Let's take a voltage measurement on these Forty point five six volts on the driver's side module so positive to negative Thirty-two point four five Now this battery we fully charged it before we took it apart What you're not supposed to do We've got a battery discharge er balancer Charger System that we've we've got coming that will discharge the battery down To a lower voltage level before you do service work on it or before you dispose of it but this one is fully charged and so I still need to investigate to see how many battery cells and Battery packs in a pack once again is a three cells welded together in parallel with each other Are in here I know that there are ninety six total battery packs in the entire Battery two hundred and eighty eight cells, but there are three cells welded in parallel as I've said several times so that is the battery module number five it appears to have a stud That goes all the way through the length of the battery Two studs on each side very much like the Chevrolet Volt battery made by LG so and I Can't see It looks like there's just some covers that might be removable the connections between battery packs I will investigate that further Once again the bottom of the battery looks just like the top of the battery. I can't tilt that and show you that it's too heavy for me to do that but Maybe when we put it back on we can look underneath One more thing I did check in the service information those sticky Battery pads the heat transfer pads are not reusable You must take them off and then put new ones on and make sure there That there are no bubbles in them when you reinstall them So I will see if I can get those from the local Chevrolet dealer or not It'll be interesting to see Okay, we are ready to remove the rest of the battery sections battery sections one two three and four and Before I Remove the bolts to remove those sections. I just wanted to show you one more time the voltage on these batteries so right here from negative to positive I have forty point five eight volts There are ten Battery cell packs in here of three battery cells welded in parallel together per pack fully charged around four volts each so that gives us our 40 volts the the battery section in the back The two battery sections in the back of the battery sections five and four they have a shorter section that has eight Battery cell packs in it and it has a fully charged voltage of 32 volts as we saw on the bench So what that means is we are no longer dealing with dangerous voltages I can come in and touch de- in there's nothing big deal However the proper service procedures, which I? Always recommend that you follow tell us to keep our personal protective equipment our gloves on Get rid of watches and and any other jewelry. We may have on and Keep that personal protective equipment on as we finish working on this battery taking these out, so I'm going to Put the gloves back on I've already tested them for leaks By the way it is against OSHA regulations to use these gloves without in leather outer glove Except for one time you can use them one time without the leather outer, glove, and then you have to have them recertified right after that so always keep your leather outer gloves on your high-voltage class zero gloves and that's because without any protection over them you could cut them and Render them useless immediately Okay, so we've got three bolts on the side of each battery section so six bolts total on the sides and then six bolts in the front six bolts in the back of Each battery and a section, so I'm going to remove those bolts Right now and let's take out battery section number one Okay, we'll take our front bracket off Oh, I forgot there's two Center bolts we got to take out Actually they're nuts on studs Another bracket three bolts on the right side Three bolts on the lift and Then this bracket that holds down both battery modules for battery sections one and two comes out It does not appear. Yes, it does to be directional. It has a little hook Right there a little tab so it has to go back in in a certain direction Looks like the tab is right here so the tabs were facing inward on the passenger side Also in were inward on the driver's side And then the last remaining nut on that center section Right there Okay, it's time to bring in the battery lifting fixture and crane this time I'm going to put the fixture on the battery first and then connect the crane to the fixture Should be a lot easier. I don't know why I didn't think of that before Now the big challenge with this fixture as we saw in removing battery section five is that we do not want that battery section tilting when we lift it up and get it out of the the bottom housing here We don't want it touching other battery terminals or touching other batteries as it comes up? So we need to try to get that as centered Or balanced as possible however the tool the eyelet of the tool is not centered in this black bar it's 12 inches From the one side and 14 inches from the other side, so it looks like this is the short side here, so I've compensated by sticking the Green bar out a little farther on this side then on this side, and then we also need To make sure that this Center Fixture that hooks into the middle of the battery here is able to hook into it so Looks like I need to bring it out One notch on this side Right there And then bring it out another notch So it will be - it will be two notches out on this side Just like that so we've got two exposed notches over here, we've only got one over here We can put this middle holding fixture right up in that center piece there as I learned last time this really needs to be clamped down tight Or it tilts so either. I was using it incorrectly or it Needs to be improved the design of that center portion Alright, so now We've got the eyelets centered over the middle of the battery We're ready to come in with the hoist and pick it up and hopefully that will give us a balanced Pick up of this battery section now remember the under the battery we have that sticky Coolant pad I did some research on that and I found out that You are always supposed to replace that they cost around $30 per pad. There's two of them They just peel right up. They're not super sticky, but they are sticky I'm trying to order some from our local Chevrolet dealer Everything is on parts order restriction right now And so I'm waiting to see if we can even purchase them before I pill off and and possibly ruin the previous ones We won't put it together until I can get some new ones But it may be a little while on the on the parts before I can Put it back together and put it back in the vehicle because this needs to work again All right, let's bring that crane in Okay, let's lift it up All right, we will bring it up slowly so that we can release that adhesive There we go and that looks a lot better, it's Balanced Looks like I need to pull the crane back just a little bit There we go Nice that looks a lot better So I believe the mistake I made with the holding fixture before was not putting it on the battery first I should have done that because that Center holding fixture seems to be holding just fine So that was my mistake all right, let's put this over on the table with the other one All right, we'll get ready to put the Two lifts the next battery Get the centerpiece hooked in Okay with battery section one removed you can see the white Sticky heat transfer pads that transfer the heat out of the battery into the cooling plate underneath those coolant pads So now let's take out the next battery section. We'll have Three bolts on each side the Center bolts, and then the six bolts that are common between it and the next battery All right well bring our crane back over all Right let's lift up battery section number two Let's take that over to the table Okay, we're ready to take out battery section number three Okay to get battery section three out we have to undo the brackets that hold it in place, but there are shared bracket with battery section number four So to get that one out we have to take off the coolant plate on the top here for battery section five and To get to that we have or to be able to remove that we have to be able to pull off The battery heat transfer mat, so you'll notice here. I can just grab it and Peel it up I'll try to save it so that it doesn't get ruined that gives us access to The nuts that hold it in place There's a small side and a large side Now I can get to the three nuts that hold the coolant plate in for battery section five Well, we will have to undo some hose clamps here to get that off before we can take this upper bracket off Before we can take the brackets off the hold in battery section number three So let's get these nuts loose And it should free up our battery coolant plate Let me get some pliers, and we'll get that get those hoses disconnected. It looks like the upper ones might be easier to Disconnect Now the tricky part here as with any coolant hose is the hose probably wants to stick to the aluminum Fitting that it hooks on and we have to be real careful not to break that fitting off Or we'll have to replace the coolant plate that are hooks to The upper coolant plate only has three connections and is rather small so if I break it It'll be a lot less expensive to replace than the gigantic bottom piece so We'll see if we can get those Loosened up here So now I'll just loosen them up one by one Okay for the first time ever Let's take off this coolant plate and see What it looks like? big piece of aluminum Look at our three coolant fittings here And then you can see the channels of how the coolant flows through the coolant plates let's see if I remember right the Inlet is that two outer ones and the outlet is the center one so cooling plate battery section number five And it has coolant in it that was dumb Okay with that cooling plate out of the way We can lift up this Insulated pad feels retained by something Looks like it was just held down with a little piece of double-sided tape right there Insulator to keep the reflect the heat away from Well from To keep the heat from battery section for from getting into section five and Five from getting into section four okay, now that we've got the Coolant pads the coolant plate and the insulator out of the way We're finally down to this upper bracket over battery section for that We have to remove to get these Center brackets out to remove battery section three All right is that it for that upper plate where we got one more hidden hidden somewhere I Think that's it Get these nuts put away, so I can think we could I think we can just lift off this Brass kit now yeah This bracket is is really thick has some foam pads on the back Between the battery section for in the bottom of the bracket so we want to keep that clean and dry Now I think we can lift out Two brackets Holding down my battery section three and battery section four It looks like these have the little tabs facing outward rather than inward Like the previous two sets we've removed Let me just double check I believe we've got everything out All the bolts out to get battery section three Which is identical for the battery section one out? Although battery section two may look just like battery section one and three it actually has Opposite polarity terminals on it that allows the batteries to be put in series with each other on the left side of the battery Housing and the right-hand side of the battery housing so never get those mixed up always Mark which section is which Double-check the polarity so that we always have positive going to negative with those big bus bars All right, let's bring the crane in and get battery section three out of there, okay? Let's take it up Taking it up slowly letting the sticky battery pads release All right, we're down to our last battery section section four here it has a bracket that goes up to hold modules or it has a Bracket that goes up to hold section five in place on each side that we have to remove and then it has the same three bolts on each side and Two brackets on the the back with three bolts each that hold it in place and one Center bolt So that's two Center bolts. Let's cut those off and get that last module Get that last section out of there All right on this outer bracket that holds battery section five in place there is one more electrical connector And what it is is an extension harness for the cell voltage monitoring circuits it just goes from this outer bracket over to the side of the battery like the rest of the batteries had and So I need to take that off of this bracket Before I can remove it on each side It just has a couple of push in retainers That will pop out So now you can see the the high voltage sensing lines and The three bolts that hold this side of the battery down So I'll get those out next We do not need to remove the high voltage cell sensing lines Right-hand bracket And then the last three bolts holding the battery down All right, let's get the battery Removing tool on there and get this battery section four out and then we can get those cross braces out of there and the Gigantic cooling plate in the bottom of the battery, and then we're done disassembling this battery All right, it looks like I was wrong we do need to remove these high voltage cell sensing lines to allow the battery lifting fixture to come in and get into the holes where it needs to be Got to harness retainers to connect your position assurance clips All right, there's our left-hand high voltage sense harness For battery section four Here's the other To harness retainers And here's our harness for the other side Okay, let's get this holding fixture in here as centered as possible We've got the lifting fixture eyelets centered across the battery length But remember since we've got a short side of the battery and alongside of the battery For sections four and five it's not going to be over this black section that was in the middle of sections one two and three, it's going to be off to the side here, so I think that's as Balanced as we can be there is there there is not another hole over here to scoot. Oh But there is over here, we could scoot the whole thing over one more notch I've got to get a ruler or tape measure and see Okay from the outside edge to the eyelet. I've got 17 inches on the one side and 17 on the other, that's That's what you need to have it's got to be equally centered in there or the battery will tilt like Section five did When I first took that up, I'd I must have had it off one notch in the wrong direction Okay, let's bring in the crane and get that up and out of there Okay, let's bring it up. Okay here comes You lifted the whole battery trip with it We no longer have the weight of an additional battery section to hold it down and take it off of the battery pad So we'll let it sit there and do its thing I Can hear a lot of popping You know bring it up just a little bit more There we go All right, I've lifted the battery section up pretty high so you can see underneath it. Let's take a look Okay, and as you can see there the bottom of the battery Looks just like the top of the battery It's got those big aluminum heat sinks that make contact with the Cooling pads All those white cooling pads The transfer the heat into the cooling plate down below it So now we are going to remove those three four cross braces and then the cooling plate, and then we will have the battery completely gutted and disassembled as far as we can go with one exception possibly the Relay Center, I'm pretty sure That if it's anything like the Chevrolet Volt with a V that the contactors are Serviceable you can replace those But we will find out I do not know for sure so Let's let's let me get this battery out of the way, and we'll get the rest of this disassembled All right, there's our last battery section Just put that over here with the others Okay We are ready to take those Four braces out of there It looks like the two middle ones Are the same And the two outside ones Are different from all of them? the one with the two studs in a row is in the front the one with the offset studs is in the rear I better mark those All right this will be number one, I'll put an arrow pointing forward To Three And four Alright, so there are two bolts apiece holding those down Nope just the back three the first one only has one so let's get those out of there Alright, let's take those out of there They appear just to be Steele Breck braces Okay Number three Number two And number one As you can see with them close together Different stud configurations different holes Okay, we are just about done We have To take off this coolant plate next looks like we've got a Nut Right there Two nuts right there Two more right there Only one on that one got a few in the middle One right there two off to the side Two more and one more and I think that's it And the last one unless I've missed one we are ready to attempt to lift out the Coolant plate in the bottom of this battery housing. I think I've got all the bolts out I am sure that it still has coolant in it now. I want to avoid if at all possible Getting or spilling any coolant in this housing because it has some What looks like some? complex Bracketry that's all welded together with some passages in there, and it would be difficult to get that out of there so All right, I'm going to try to get it out myself. I've plugged the holes on the other side But this box under here This box under here Let's look this whole Okay my plan to get this coolant plate off is to just Slide it towards the front tip it right off the edge here and let it finish draining in the bucket The box that I use to drain the cooling system initially when I took the battery out of the vehicle So let's see how that goes Tip it up and pull the plug There's barely anything coming out And of course that's the outlet side I Can see the inlet side over here the rag getting a little wet so it obviously has some Coolant still in it but but overall I'm impressed that vacuum Removal procedure got out a pretty good amount Other than what was in that upper plate below battery section five that I spilled on myself This looks this looks pretty good, I'm going to turn this around so you can see the other side now Here is the coolant plate At the top here is the back we're looking at the bottom of the coolant plate For battery sections one at the bottom here two three and four There we go Now we can see the entire Coolant plate from underneath. I'm just going to set it on some shop stools get it out of the way Okay here we go nice Okay, we are down to just the insulating pads underneath the coolant plate I'm sure that their purpose is to keep the Cold or hot from outside the vehicle or under the vehicle from affecting the battery temperature inside This is a closed system active cooling system. Heating system for the battery and it We want to avoid all outside interference if possible so those are the last pieces To be removed Obviously, this is number four Three the arrow pointing forward Be hard to mix up number four number three two and One so let's see if we can lift those out of there if they're held down with tape feels like the tape Have to come in with a long screwdriver and help it out Double-sided tape holding it down There we go, so there's number one, there's the tape Number two those look identical Three Also identical And number four Which is unique Okay, there is one last part that has to come off And then we're done with this disassembly video and that is the housing for the large two-wire electrical connector right here So we've just got four bolts Here's the housing it's got a nice weather seal on it And that's it that's the last part. We have totally gutted the 2017 Chevrolet bolt with a B battery We've taken apart everything that can be taken apart that I'm aware of now it's going to take me a little while to get the parts and the thermal pads and Do a few other things as far as research before I'm ready to put this back together But I will shoot another video on the reassembly because Always, it's easier to take something apart than it is to put it back together So as much work as this was this was the easy part, so I've got a lot more studying and research to do Of course I like to label everything and take things apart I'm not supposed to take apart, so we'll see what can be and cannot be taken apart What can and cannot be serviced in addition to what we've taken apart here? Just out of curiosity sake I want to see how heavy this this battery tray is the lower tray here oh-ho, man It is It's very heavy several of you on my other video on removing the bolt battery We're concerned that this was just flimsy and it's it's made of some pretty thick steel and Very heavy, it's I'm surprised at how heavy it is. It's I can barely budget and I'm not a strong man anymore, but But I can't can't move it All right, well, it's been quite an adventure. Thanks for enjoying it with me. Have a good day
If you have any interest at all how electric cars are built, this is a great channel. I don't have any relevent degrees but found his videos very easy to follow and very informative, even though I have no intention at all to ever disassemble an (electric) car. :)
I’m honestly surprised nobody has made aftermarket modifications to the packs. Adding liquid thermal management (heat and cooling) would make an enormous difference in the long term practicality of the leaf.
You don't even have to look at other manufacturer's EVs; Nissan uses a nearly identical 40kWh battery pack in the Nissan e-NV200 except that it has thermal management through the AC system. I have no idea why Nissan choose not to include that in the LEAF battery. (I don't think the e-NV200 is available with the 62kWh pack but I suspect they could do the same thing with that one)
And for those that are wondering if driving in cold weather is enough to cool the battery, I can confirm several hours driving on the highway at temperatures around -5C to -10C (25F to 15F) does not appear to lower the battery temperature according to the display on a LEAF Plus. At 0F or colder, it does appear that the battery temperature will slowly drop.
Absolutely kills me that they made 10 years worth of these cars and never added cooling for the batteries. Planned obsolescence if I’ve ever seen it. Like what exactly were they thinking in 2018? They did an entire revision of the Leaf and didn’t add the one feature that we want the most.
That said I’ll definitely add it to my 2017 if it becomes possible to add someday.
I'm guessing not having this is a bad thing, but how does this bad thing manifest itself in everyday operation?
For those of us in temperate climates ( Chicago) thermal is rarely an issue, or even of notice. I think I have seen 7 bars once on my 2019 Plus post a DC charge. Yes, if doing cross country often, you need it, but for <400 miles a day really a non issue.
The 2019+ batteries are showing to have a similar degradation curve to Tesla, and slightly worse than the Bolt, which has held up the best (barring current Bolt fires).