Silver 2014 #2872

[ctyler653]

Hello,
I bought my Silver 2014 (#2872) used with 30,200 miles in March 2019 to be my daily driver. It's been a great car and problem free since. I've been telling myself I'm going to drive it until it's dead. Now approaching 10 years (still only 53,600 miles) I'm starting to wonder how long that will be, and here I am catching up to all the backlog of info on this site.

Craig

 

[fred_dot_u]

Check your speed sensor to see if you've been afflicted with the dreaded leaking coolant.

 

[hokiematt]

If you're having no issues/noises, you should definitely consider installing the 'coolant delete/bypass' option as discussed in several different threads. You're driving on borrowed time at this point, and updating this motor like this will eliminate the one weak point it has. The cost is fairly reasonable assuming you want to keep driving the vehicle; the update can be done without having to remove the drive unit. If you wait until you have drive unit noise/issues, it will be a much more expensive fix requiring motor removal, bearing replacement, etc.

 

[asavage]

Summary of "coolant delete" options + background.

Not to fear-monger, but these days we hear a lot on this forum about issues on our now aged RAV4 EVs, so naturally my mind goes to the trouble spots.

If your car has never had its LDU replaced under warranty, it'll have the troublesome Aegis ring (that didn't work) and eventually you'll have to have at least the rotor bearings replaced; this problem may not show up for another 20-30k miles, and it will exhibit noise as you accelerate, slightly less perhaps when coasting. It's not subtle in its later stages, but it comes on slowly so it's a "boiling a frog" situation. It's not particularly damaging to drive with this noise for a while, but it will eventually get bad enough that the noise will drive you and your neighbors crazy, and when bad enough will cause driveability issues all by itself.

Once those original rotor bearings are replaced, and you get rid of liquid cooling the rotor, then your LDU should be good for a long time . . . unless you drive in states that use road "salt" to aid in melting snow; the LDU's HV cables are mounted vertical down orientation, rainwater (snow slush) can collect on the HV cable glands, and they corrode badly in this design. Water will enter the inverter side via this route. We just had a post on this for a Model S yesterday.



If you live/drive in an area where "salt" is used to aid in snow control, and if you ever have the LDU out for any reason, grease the bejeezus out of the tops of these cables upon reinstallation. The alternative can be to dry out the inverter side and replace the cables, which are around $605 each right now.

 

[ctyler653]

If your car has never had its LDU replaced under warranty, it'll have the troublesome Aegis ring (that didn't work) and eventually you'll have to have at least the rotor bearings replaced; this problem may not show up for another 20-30k miles, and it will exhibit noise as you accelerate, slightly less perhaps when coasting. It's not subtle in its later stages, but it comes on slowly so it's a "boiling a frog" situation. It's not particularly damaging to drive with this noise for a while, but it will eventually get bad enough that the noise will drive you and your neighbors crazy, and when bad enough will cause driveability issues all by itself.

I've definitely been getting noisy acceleration these days. Quite a bit of noise on the accelerator that is mostly gone when coasting. "Boiling a frog" is a good way of putting it because I could never tell if that was what it always like, and if it wasn't always like that, when it had started.

Check your speed sensor to see if you've been afflicted with the dreaded leaking coolant.

How does this look? I didn't see any obvious blue on the paper towel, but those drops are suspicious.

 

[asavage]

To my eyes, those drops do not look like grease

 

[fred_dot_u]

Yeah, it doesn't look good, but not as bad as one of our fleet (of two). If there's grease involved, it's what the drops are sitting on.

 

[hbrav]

Ours is a 2012 all original drives and sounds fine so far at 83K miles but I've sidelined it for inspection and will use the ChargePower manifold to do the delete since it looks easiest fix with keeping in place the flyover tube, which looks hard to remove if I don't want to drop the LDU.

 

[asavage]

The flyover tube can be retained using the QCC manifold, or by the DIY method using a machined plug (what I did)



or a SS formed cup (available "RSN").



You have to pull the flyover tube upward vertically about 3/4" to remove the manifold, and it has a single clamp with a 10mm bolt head, readily accessible right above the manifold (on the RAV4 EV, anyway; it's more difficult on the Model S!). Easy to remove the bolt, then the tube lifts up enough to remove the manifold.



The ReVolt manifold kit comes with a plug to install in place of the flyover, seen fuzzily in this pic:



The DIY method means cutting the taper tube off the OEM manifold, doing a bit of aluminum grinding, and pressing in a plug or cup using a vice and some wood blocks, then reinstalling it. QCC's manifold is pretty and all, but it's $770 (with tax); DIY is well under $100 (machined plug) and probably under $50 using the SS formed cup (I haven't seen pricing yet) plus about an hour of fiddling around with a hacksaw and Dremel or equivalent.

Other than "pretty", the only thing the QCC part has going for it is supposed ability to use oil as a heat transfer medium to the rotor, instead of glycol. I'd love to hear feedback from someone who's used this feature.

 

[hbrav]

I do own a small 8x10 mill and have made small parts for hobby use in aluminum. Its the harbor freight mill with better chuck and spindle attachment, works fairly well. I could try the plug method you pioneered it does look fairly straightforward. Is it possible to get the assembly drawing?

Steve
12 RAV
13 Model S
both need this fix eventually

 

[asavage]

Is it possible to get the assembly drawing?

The only drawing I have for public consumption is in the third post down in that thread I linked above. It was a to-scale print of a drawing in eMachineShop's proprietary CAD software (which does not export) but for a simple part like this, where you can make up your own chamfer and radii specs, my hand-written notes are sufficient.

A HF hobby mill is quite adequate for this. And that thread even has a link to the 6061 slugs I bought from eBay at a reasonable price.

(I own an elderly Taiwanese mill/drill but I don't have a lathe and am not sufficiently competent to use my mill for lathe operations, though I do own a boring head and could theoretically accomplish it, by reversing the bore head's cutter and cutting on the OD. I just sub'd it out instead.)

 

[asavage]

[update 13Jun2024] Brian is selling the SS formed caps (without Loctite) for $44 (with tax) via eBay:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/166811720663



Paul is selling the SS formed caps + Loctite for $50. IDK if he has them "in stock", but they're on his sales page:

https://armstrong-mobile-forklift-repair.square.site/shop/tesla-sales/OFZJ2ZCVNNQRWQANTM2DMIU6




Do use the Loctite ("green" for sleeve or bearing mounting) and not "red" or "blue" (for thread locking). I used Loctite 640 on mine.

 

[ctyler653]

It seems like I'm headed for a LDU rebuild to address the bearing sound and coolant time-bomb. I'm not at all handy so I'm going to get a quote from QC Charge.

 

[hbrav]

I pulled the sensor and checked for leaks, the reluctance wheel and interior are clean the sensor had drops of what feels like grease no blue tint and viscous more like a grease then a liquid. I will leave LDU in place and use the steel cup from Armstrong Lift to delete the rotor coolant path, seems like the easiest and most cost effective fix at this point. Motor is quiet and smooth I don't sense any bearing issues. Car is a 2012 with 83K miles its been super reliable so far hoping to keep it that way for another 80k miles. Just ordered the ss cup to cap off the rotor coolant hopefully extending the life of my motor.
2012 White #1111

 

[alflash]

On speed sensor of your photos there is grease washed out of a closed hybrid bearing and obvious traces of coolant
A similar example is shown here


Links to the continuation of this story and happy ending and rechecking two years later in its description

 

[asavage]

Some grease seems to "always" be on the speed sensor, from the assembly grease during installation of the seal, but the round drops I see don't seem like grease, as grease seldom forms that type of geometry at normal temperatures.

---

I've updated a post above to add that Brian is now selling the SS formed caps alone for $44 (with tax) via eBay.

 

[hbrav]

OK had time to start delete project quite easy to get to manifold on the RAV took about 1 hour. My next question is how do I remove the shaft seal from the manifold, I expect carefully so I don't damage the inner surface. Also it appears that no coolant snuck past anything there is the slightest amount of grease on the inside of the seal and no rust or moisture anywhere. The car has 83K miles and its all original. Looking in at the seal it appears to be multiple, quite wide seals and in very good condition for the miles on it. OK the seal actually came out pretty easily now onto deleting the cooling shaft.

 

[asavage]

I own a seal removal tool, Lisle 56750, but I just used a big #3 flat screwdriver to pry mine out; it didn't give me much of a fight.

There's nothing to damage in there, except the OD of the seal bore, so as long as you don't scratch where the seal OD sits, you can pry all you like.

 

[tjlee]

Two self tapping screw made it easy to remove the seal for me. One on opposite side, enough screwed in to have few threads into aluminum and use vice clamp to hold and vice grip plier to pull it out. I forgot who but someone had posted this method and it worked really well for me.

 

[asavage]

Self-tappers (or pilot hole and sheet metal screws) and a lady slipper bar was the way we'd remove seals in the motorcycle shop I worked in 45 years ago; it is a good method when you're removing a seal that is around a shaft, and you don't want tools to scratch the shaft.

But this seal doesn't have anything delicate around it; we don't care if the taper tube gets nicked, 'cuz we're cutting it off anyway, and even if we weren't, it doesn't have a seal surface to be damaged.

Prying is fine here.