Charger replacement project begins

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fred_dot_u

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Dec 5, 2016
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75
Due to my inability to find a shop I can trust to perform the charger replacement, I've decided to take it on myself. To that end, I plan to perform as many steps in the process as I can in each session. If I'm unable to proceed on a particular aspect, I have neighbors in better health and a Ford dealership mechanic down the street who might be able to work over the stumbles.

My current approach will be to purchase the US$90 Toyota TIS license for a month and download what I hope will be the obvious documents to start the project.

I will be doubling as an Uber driver to get my wife to work, which gives me the motivation to move just that little bit faster on each step.

Because my health isn't what it once was, including my mental health, I have to take things step by step and can't absorb (without losing) information that may be necessary in the future.

To that end, I intend to post to this topic my progress along with each succeeding step as referenced in the TIS documentation.

I recall (barely) that one of the early steps is to put the vehicle on ramps and remove the splash panels. I have done exactly that when my wife pointed out the noise that a hanging panel makes while reversing! I'm hopeful I can find the bag of panel push pins I purchased when that happened.

If anyone has advisories along the way, please post them. I'm sure they will be helpful to me as well as to others, but please also aim to post them in the appropriate timeline, that is, a helpful hint regarding putting something back in place is best left to a couple steps in advance of that posting of my progress.

At the moment, I'm holding off on subscribing to the month of TIS, as I'm hoping someone can throw a hint to me regarding which documents I should be collecting. Additionally, the question arises: is the TIS a subscription which allows direct downloads to my computer, or is it a live-use only service?

I'm hoping to get this wrapped up by Thanksgiving, but I suspect that might be optimistic.
 
fred_dot_u said:
...
My current approach will be to purchase the US$90 Toyota TIS license for a month and download what I hope will be the obvious documents to start the project. ...
No need.

+ https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipOyYd35emzO9xLYi-aOmunJfYjCPGveXRf1XHgYCmwCWswsdYRdxGVAYLoTu10N8g?key=UEgzLWFxSjJEX2QwczVaUElUT0xSYlZySVdPZ1N3
 
Those are interesting photographs. It almost makes be believe I could accomplish much of the job myself. I also plan that I would take photographs as I remove parts, but make notes for each photograph to better remember what was done. This would make it easier for me to put it back together.

I'm amused to see that the charger is sitting on the same type of workbench I use, although mine has a few saw cuts and spray paint marks all over it.
 
Hi Fred, my brother and I just replaced my charger last weekend (Friday October 21 and Saturday October 22 2022).

We used little sandwich bags to hold each set of parts as we took them off.

We put little paper notes into each bag with the parts and numbered the notes. It REALLY HELPED us remember "what comes next" as we took everything off and then put it all back on.

We ended up with something like 45 little baggies.

We have replaced my charger twice.

We're getting better at it :) We found a few shortcuts, such as leaving the cables from the charger to the DC/DC converter attached to the charger. Not earthshaking, but one less thing to deal with. We also discovered (or remembered from other posts) that the charger can be "slid" to the right an inch or so to give easier access to the junction box on the left side (looking into the engine compartment).

If you get stuck, feel free to post a picture and a question and I'll see if I can help out.

David
 
Also,

If you are not adept at handling small parts, remember to stuff rags where the small parts being taken off will inevitably fall. And remember to pull the rags back out when you are done.

We enjoyed having one of those "telescoping magnets" too. Several times.

David
 
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