Refurbishing Applianaces: Flipping a 2005 Toyota Prius

This thread needs more pictures!

Good work so far, it sounds like my flip projects.. just one more thing, no really just this one more thing..

In reply to t25torx:

Thanks! Sorry- I've not done a whole lot more so far that has been worth taking pictues of, though I suppose pictures of the wheels with the shiny new rotor & drums and nice silver calipers wouldn't be bad. There will be a lot more pictures once all the exterior work is done.

Yeah, there always does seem to be 'one more thing'. It's become a running joke with SWMBO- when I was trying to get the El Camino running to avoid having to tow it to the new place I was perpetually telling her it would just take '1 or 2 more hours' to get it mobile, and now that's what she teases me about with regards to how much longer it will take me to get the Prius done and ready to go.

It will in reality take more than just 1 or 2 hours though, primarily because of all the paint touch-up/buffing/polishing/waxing I intend to do to get the exterior of the car looking as good as possible. The front of the hood is pocked enough with paint chips from gravel & such that it's been sorely tempting to just get a can of PlastiDip and put on a spray-on 'bra'.

Before and after pics!

I wish I could explain (or even understand) why this is my favorite thread in this section. :)

The weather yesterday after work was drizzly and cold, so I couldn't do a lot of what I'd hoped to (change ATF, test coolant pump). But, it was still of course possible to work INSIDE the car, so that's what I did instead.

Replaced the clock spring that I had suspected (correctly) was the cuprit in half of the steering-wheel mounted controls not working. Was easier than expected and a complete success- the controls all now work properly. I also pulled apart the bottom of the passenger side dash to get to the blower motor assembly. Unfortunately I wasn't able to disassemble it enough to be confident that I was getting oil into where it would do some good in keeping it going, but at least this morning it was behaving reasonably. Will probably end up having to spend the $40 to replace it though- can't very well be trying to sell the car in the winter and have the heat not work!

Also picked up some primer to use for the few larger spots where it's been dinged and I need to repaint. I have to admit, it was tempting to pick up a small can of the gloss white Rustoleum and see just how close of a match it is to the white of the car. :P

Also increasingly seriously considering the idea of getting some white PlastiDip and using it on the hood- fixing all the chips there will be a LOT of time. Have also toyed with getting some black and using it to 'black out' the lower rails under the doors. Both sides are a bit banged up, and I'm guessing that the black would show that a lot less obviously than the white paint color does...

Had enough time this evening to pull the connector and directly test the water pump that I think has failed- and got nothing out of it when hooked up directly to a charged battery. So, that's a $140 part to add to the budget and off of my profit. Oh, well. After that I had enough time to use my buffer and some of the Mother's 4Lights I had tested earlier to really clear up the cloudy headlights- took before/after pictures of this that I'll upload to the photo album shortly.

Tomorrow I'm heading out to a salvage yard in Louisville to look for some parts for the Elky and also to hopefully snag an O2 sensor from another car that uses the same rearward one that the Prius does to test if that helps my P0420 code. Wish they had an actual PRIUS, but I've yet to see one AT ALL in salvage yard inventories.

P0420 is not related to o2 efficiency. They have a different set of criteria for a failure.

Louisville? Wish I had seen this earlier as Its a good junkyard day. where are you located?

Junkyard_Dog wrote: Louisville? Wish I had seen this earlier as Its a good junkyard day. where are you located?

It was a great day for it- just warm enough to be comfortable in coveralls but not too warm to be sweating a lot. I'm in Lexington- out only real u-pull-it closed sometime in the last year or so, and I discovered the ISA u-pull-it had an (3 actually) El Camino so I figured it was a good excuse to put some highway mileage on the clock of the prius (successfully as the picture shows) and check out a salvage yard I'd not been to before.

Had some time after I got back from the salvage yard Saturday and attacked the roof of the car with rubbing and polishing compound. Would have waxed it too, but I want to do the paint touch-up before waxing it. Did take pictures of that- it's not as dramatic as say the doors will bed, but still a noticeable change.

Today is supposed to be fairly nice- I'm seriously considering using a half-day of vacation that I need to use before the end of the year to go home and work on detailing the car.

There is some unlikeliness of seeing hybrids in salvage yards as if the battery cell was ruptured, they can catch fire days to weeks later.

Yeah, I kind of figured it was because of the HV battery packs that they weren't showing up in yards- but would have thought perhaps if the traction batteries were removed (you can recondition and sell individual cells/modules easily) that at least the non-HV parts of the car would be fine.

Did some more searching on the ICE feeling like it's 'stumbling' when it shuts off at a light, and found that apparently that's quite normal and happens with even brand new ones, especially when the engine isn't all the way warmed up. Pretty much now all I need to do mechanically is resolve the P0420 code and replace the coolant recirculation pump (already ordered).

Hopefully this afternoon will be sufficient to do all the detailing on the car- it's supposed to be down below freezing for the next few weeks so I don't want to be washing and waxing it in that weather.

Took the afternoon off as I'd considered and was able to take care of the bulk of the detailing on the car- I mainly just need to wax it and do the trim. Went over it with rubbing and polishing compound, went over it with the buffer and then did all the paint touch-up.

Took a good number of pictures, though I finished in the dark so couldn't get very good ones of tr finished state- will hopefully have decent weather for that tomorrow.

Finally, I was able to see the pictures since I have checked the thread outside of work. Wow, the interior really was horrid. It looks a million times better. Keep up the great progress!

Good luck with that cat code, those suck to diagnose.

Snapped a few pictures of the cleaned-up (mostly) car in the sunlight before I headed off to work on the bike. I'm hoping that the weather forecast is wrong and the rain holds off until this evening so I can a) not have to ride home in the rain and b) wax the car when I get home before it gets rained on.

Well, the weather didn't behave and started raining right as I was heading for home. So got wet riding home and couldn't do any waxing. But, the latter isn't so much of an issue- doing some research at work I found that you're not supposed to wax over the touch-up paint for a week. Of course, I also imagine you're supposed to keep it DRY which didn't happen, so...

Well, the good news is that the parts from ToyotaOverstockWarehouse finally shipped and will hopefully show up on Saturday. The bad news is that it's supposed to be down in the high teens overnight starting Sunday so I'm not going to be having any kind of fun finishing up the work on it. I'm not even sure if you can really wax a car when it's that cold...

Since I'm at a standstill until those parts show up and the paint can be waxed over I hope to try and get the back half of the El Camino stripped down and at least moved out of the garage if not chopped up so I can at least be working on the Prius in the relative (hahahaha) comfort of my (uninsulated and unheated) garage.

You definitely don't want to try to wax anything in the high teens.

Yeah, I'm going to have to wait a bit until it's warmer and/or I can get it into the garage and run space heaters to warm things up a bit. It's going to have to be driving a modest bit over the next week as it will be a bit too cold to comfortably ride so I'm not sure much will get done on it.

May try and take advantage of the cold weather though in trying to track down any vacuum/exhaust leaks that could be causing the P0420 code since if I'm using something like steam it will show up REALLY well in the cold air.

The weather today was warmer than expected and nicely sunny, so I took advantage of it and knocked out almost all of the non-detailing work that remained to be done. Changed transaxle fluid, replaced the coolant recirculation pump, installed the O2 sensor spacer, and put on all of the trim pieces it had been missing. Now it just needs a good detailing, but I shouldn't wax it until after Monday evening because of the paint.

We'll see over the next week or so of driving if the spacer solves the P0420 code. If so, I may forgo fogging the intake and exhaust for leaks and call it good to go for SWMBO to drive while I check out her car for issues.

Well, I've driven the Golf Cart (as SWMBO calls it) a fair bit since working on it Saturday, and the CEL has stayed joyously unlit so I'm cautiously optimistic that the spacer did the trick. The car seems to be getting modestly better gas mileage now too which is a very nice bonus.

Hopefully the forecast will be accurate and Saturday will be clear and in the 40's so I can take care of the final detailing on it. I'd -LOVE- to have it up for sale and better yet gone by Thanksgiving, but I need to get into looking at things on SWMBO's Mariner, and since we need to drive it to Wisconsin for Thanksgiving with her family I can't really get into it (I suspect it needs a lot of new suspension parts) before then.

Ashyukun wrote: I'd -LOVE- to have it up for sale and better yet gone by Thanksgiving,

Tough time to sell a car. If you could hold onto it, you could get a better price in February.

Jerry From LA wrote:

Ashyukun wrote: I'd -LOVE- to have it up for sale and better yet gone by Thanksgiving,

Tough time to sell a car. If you could hold onto it, you could get a better price in February.

We'll see what happens- the odds are I'm not going to be able to really list it until sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas depending on what happens with the Mariner. I also have the advantage of having relatively little in the way of investment in it so can still make a fair bit even if I don't get as much as if I waited.

The problem with holding on to it is that I can't get anything else to start working on until it is sold- once we have the driveway repaved and enlarged down the line and have the space I may be able to talk SWMBO into upping the number of cars we can have, but for now I'm limited to 3 (plus her 1): the DeLorean, the El Camino, and currently the Prius. Granted, the El Camino is still solidly in the 'project' status too, so holding on to the Prius for a bit longer while I work on getting it driveable has some appeal to it.

We'll see. I may try putting it up for a pie-in-the-sky price and seeing if anyone bites at it and otherwise hold on to it for a bit more.

Ashyukun wrote: We'll see. I may try putting it up for a pie-in-the-sky price and seeing if anyone bites at it and otherwise hold on to it for a bit more.

If you're really not in a rush to sell it - and seeing as your only other mode of transportation is the (incredibly awesome) DeLorean, it might be nice to have another running car besides SWMBO's - this is definitely what I would do. It can never hurt, and who knows, maybe you'll get someone to bite. You may need the money for the holidays however, I know I sure do. I've enjoyed following this build. Fixing and flipping cars is something I am very interested in, but I do not currently have the money or space to do so.

On another note, did the P0420 code ever return?

EDIT- I see now that it's only been two days since you said it was gone. For some reason I thought it had been longer.

Keeping it around until closer to spring is a definite possibility. We don't really need the mine for the holidays, the only downsides would be that I'd not be able to start on a new project and that if I keep it for a while I may need to replace the aux (12V) battery- in theory it was replaced not long ago by the PO, but it's been reading 11.9-12V with no load which is below the threshold that most people consider as the point at which it needs to be replaced to the tune of $150 (albeit for a much better Yellow Top battery...). If I didn't have the Elky to work on the 'no new project' would be a lot more of an issue, but there's a -lot- of work to be done there so I do technically have a project to work on. Having a vehicle other than the DMC for days when the weather prevents biking is a nice bonus too.

I've been driving it for the last 4 days and the CEL has stayed off- so I can say so far, so good. Efficiency has been bad though, but that's been bit a lot by the low temps that require it running the ICE a lot more than in warmer weather.