A full Chevy Volt battery pack just landed in my garage. Anyone out there have experience breaking this down from a full pack without electrocuting themselves? Pointers, tips, tricks?
Take out all the screws you can find and the top lifts right off.
What year?
Disconnect any power cables that are easy to get at. The dissconect plug is in the center making it pretty safe. After series bars are disconnected. Unplug the orange balance lead plugs in any order.
The Volt is one of the easiest to break down and yields lots of good parts.
It will make a mess from antifreeze on the floor.
Lots of teardown vids on youtube. Find some of the pro shops and you see how they are trained to do it. I’ve seen a few that set up a 5gal bucket as a trap and suck as much coolant out of it before splitting things up.
2013
Thanks for all the advice. I’ll probably need some help figuring out what parts have use/value and what’s throw away. I’ve seen some of the parts online like the main case, the disconnect plug etc… not sure if it’s worth the effort of parting that stuff out. I’d almost rather just give it to someone if they can do something useful with it.
Will keep you posted on how the tear down goes. Thanks!
Mainly the power wiring. The flat orange “cables” can be re-formed and punched for connecting battery strings. The disconnect is nice if you got the plug with it.
The orange balance leads can be reused along with the bms boxes on top of modules. I make a pcb that fits inside to connect bms wires. Although my yellow harnesses do a neater job IMO.
What’s the plan with the battery?
That’s a good question! 4 12s packs are going into a buddy’s 2002 four seater. The other one’s, I’m trying to come up with something to do with them. I have an Ez-go golf cart I’m flipping that I 1/2 thought about putting them in, maybe additional capacity in my car, the possibilities are endless! 
I just remember when I bought my 4 packs individually, it cost almost as much as the full Volt pack. Figured I’d pitch in with my buddy and then I have extra batteries on hand to do something with…
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Ok… think I found a purpose for my extra cells. I know this is a little off topic for the GEM forum but has anyone done a lithium conversion for a golf cart? I have an EzGo txt 36v that I bought as a winter project. The cart looks great, the performance up hills is TERRIBLE. I was thinking about starting with lithium before messing with controller and motor upgrades (esp considering I have the cells laying around).
Would probably do 2 packs but only 11 cells. Any recommendation for a charger and BMS? Was thinking chargery bms and dave’s harness. I could use the chargery off-board charger but wondering if there’s something that’s more ■■■■■proof like the golf cart chargers where you just plug them in and they go.
I really want to do a DC /AC conversion but don’t think I’ll get my money back out of it.
Thoughts?
Believe me, put an 8kw or 10kw motor in with 18s volt battery and you will never want to sell it.
Skip the Chargery and save money. Use a $150 smart bms and a dq dci charger.
All for <$2k
Less if you want to be a guinea pig. @MikeKC Has a pmac motor that he will sell cheap. He just doesn’t know it yet.
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I upgraded one last summer -
8Kw motor
Sevcon Controller
Two Kia lithium packs for 85v (75ah) - plenty of Ah for a golf cart as they are light.
We have it tuned down a little but it runs 40/42mph on tiny wheels and tires. He LOVES IT.
He has under 2K into it. We had a used controller for him so that helped the cost.
As for the charger - go with a Delta Q. IMHO
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You should know me by now, I’m always game to be a guniea pig… this might not be the car to do it on. I’d be game to build a golf cart around the motor and battery solution though.
This car, I’ve got like 5800 into it. I don’t think I could come out even if I dropped another 2k into it. I’m weighing between do I try to drop weight and minimize voltage sag with my volt batteries (try to keep the motor, controller, etc to minimize addition cost)… Or do I do one of the DC controller motor upgrades and leave the wet cells in.
For the car you just did, did you have to add disk brakes? I’d be nervous doing 40 in the cart I just built having rear drum brakes only.
@Inwo Is this the same pmac motor I saw you had in a golf cart a while ago?
At this point I just need it to be able to climb hills faster than 5 mph so I can sell it and do another project. This one started with cosmetic and now backing into performance. Next one I want to build round the motor and batteries and then make it look pretty.
Open to ideas!
Do you know what gears it has in it. Likely 12:44 but not sure?
No clue… I’m sure I can find out though. It’s a 2006 ezgo txt… there are a ton out there. I have the service manual. Let me see if that says
Quick search around… pretty sure 12:1
If you wanted to stay stock and drop 500lbs you could do these. One 24v and one 18v.
I buy from these guys all the time… Great company.
That would give you 42v max, which should be about perfect and the battery would take about the space of 1.5 normal batteries. With the weight loss and the lithium advantage you might be right where you want to be - cheap also.
Curtis on this forum is running a 93v volt 120ah car with these and they have been great.
Actually… This seller is where I got my first set of volt batteries. They work great.
I like this setup. Not sure they have the 24v packs. Still delta q charger and smart bms?
I have a $200 alltrax sepex controller from a Gem upgrade.
Yes the 10kw pmac from my hotrod.
I put a smaller pmac on it and still powerful. 4kw Maybe?
$200 for the motor. Maybe we can find a used controller on ebay.
@MikeKC I found him a $375 gen 4 80v s4 on eBay.
Do you have plans for the little pmac? Or should we find a sucker to do the work for us.
I do have one running in my hotrod, for working dcf.
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I have no plans for the small PMAC - I was thinking of trying to build a go-cart in the spring but it is all yours if you need it.