# Reviving a 1993 Dodge Caravan TEVan



## Zemmo (Sep 13, 2007)

I just picked up a 1993 Dodge Caravan TEVan. I created a quick EVAlbum for it. When it finally gets approved the URL should be http://www.evalbum.com/2403

I have gotten a lot of things figured out on it. I by-passed the DC-DC converter and was able to power up the 12 volt system with a 12 volt battery. For some reason a lot of fuses were pulled from the fuse panel in the dash. I put all of the proper fuses into that and it looks like everything of the 12 volt system is working.

I checked all of the high voltage fuses and they all checked out, a DVM showed that they were all ok. I checked out some of the batteries and I believe that they had reversed polarity. I found some reading material online that says these batteries might be revivalable. But in order to revive them they have to be charged really slow. I dug through the cables that came with the van and I will have to put new plug ends onto the 240 volt cables. But one of the cables allowed the van to plug into a standard 120 volt outlet. So I plugged in the van into the 120 volt box, I heard the van saftey check relays, then the main contactor connected, few seconds later and I could hear the transformer buzzing. So that means the charger started, I checked the current it was pulling from the wall and it is pulling 11.5 amps at 120 volts AC. I let that go for a few hours and unplugged it for the night. I checked the batteries and they are now at the right polarity and taking some charge. I check the batteries this morning, the voltage dropped 20 volts but was still positive. Don't know if they will revive and if they do how many miles it will have but things look good for the batteries at the moment.

Some things I need to figure out is why the LXT device on the dash doesn't power up. I think that device says if there is any error codes in the system. But right now it doesn't display anything. I don't get the run indicator when I turn the key on, so something is preventing it from getting the "run" indicator. I put the van up on jack stands hopeing I could get the tires to spin but nothing. There is still a lot of things to check out like the battery exhaust fan, I don't hear that kicking on while charging. But I am at least making some headway with the Van.


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

Glad to see the (revival?) thread started! Good luck!


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## Zemmo (Sep 13, 2007)

The batteries are doing better and better. They are holding at 215 volts. I was checking the other devices trying to figure out why they didn't run when the key was turned on. I finally noticed that all of the devices that didn't turn on were controlled by the Power Distribution Center (PDC) (big fancy fuse block). After checking that for a while I followed the circuitry schematics in the manual that came with the van and found out that there was an ignition power line feeding that PDC to turn on the devices. I traced that back to the OEM fuse box and it had a blown fuse. After testing many things I finally figured out that one of the relays was bad. So I need to run to the store and get a new relay and replace the bad one. Hopefully with that fixed I might get that run signal so I can spin the tires. I did notice I got more diagnostic lights on the dash, it is now telling me I have low traction pack battery. So more and more things are coming to life on the van.


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## Zemmo (Sep 13, 2007)

I got the replacement relay today and put it in place and tried the ignition again. Everything was running fine that was controlled by the power distribution block. But I still didn't have the run signal. I monkeyed around a bit more and was reaching for straws. Nothing looked odd or out of place. So I decided it was finally time to open the MCU, everything outside of the MCU seemed to be working. So I took off the screws and took a peek inside, WOW! That looks really impressive, everything nicely laid out, wires bundled together, and even numbered lines. I checked that out for about 10 minutes oogling over how well everything was laid out. While I was looking around I found 3 fuses, the TEVan video says there is no serviceable parts inside, thats why I didn't look in the MCU yet. So I checked those fuses and found one that was blown. This MCU was suppose to be tested, upgraded, road tested again and sent back to the owner (at the time). So I am a little surprised to find a fuse blown inside of the MCU. Anyways I went and got a replacment fuse and put it in. Went to the cab and turned on the ignition. Suddenly I have a "RUN" signal! WOO HOOO The LXT diagnostic device was also powered up and displaying -03. I pressed on the accelerator just a little bit and the front tires started spinning. So now I am at least getting the electronic diagnostic device working for me. So things are looking good. Now its time to go figure out what -03 means and fix it. Wish me luck.....


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## ClintK (Apr 27, 2008)

Wow nicely done! I'm surprised to hear how many blown fuses you have. Do you have plans to switch out the batteries, or are you going to see how much life is left in the current ones first?


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## Zemmo (Sep 13, 2007)

More than likely when they were reinstalling the MCU, they connected something wrong and popped the internal fuse. The relay that was bad probably just had a short in its coil and that is why it blew the other fuse. So those are the only things I have replaced so far, the two fuses and one relay.

I played with the van for a little while longer and figured out the last of the error codes. I can't fix the last one easily, the transmission gear selector hits a switch to tell the controller which gear it is in. But for some reason, both low and high gear switches are close so it throws that last code saying its in both high and low at the same time (when that can't be possible). When I unplug them both, no more error codes, it just display the battery voltage. So I will have to figure out how to fix those gear switches, but the van will drive with that error code. So other than that, the system now checks out.

The batteries started out at 215 volts, they held that voltage now for several days and I haven't recharged them since Monday (now Wednesday). I was testing the motor and trany by having it turn the wheels some. I noticed the batteries dropped very quickly to 150 volts, I tried each gear and it worked fine. When I was done the voltage was 100 volts. So that might have gotten the van down the driveway and then died. I am going to cycle these batteries and see if they can come back to life. I am not sure how long that will take, I guess only time will tell, I can only hope that batteries will come back. If they don't come back to life, I'm not sure what I will do.


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## Zemmo (Sep 13, 2007)

I got all of the battery pods dropped from the van this weekend. That takes quite a bit of work all by your self! Only one pod had bad corrosion on the inside. One other pod had a little bit but I found a loose hose and I believe thats what caused that problem. All of the batteries are withing 5 one hundredths of each other except for 1 battery (it was about 1/2 a volt off from the others). They were all full of water in every cell. I took out all of the batteries in the pods and cleaned up the pods with a garden hose and cleaned up the batteries. They look brand new again, it was mostly dust. I will probably put a filter onto the fan system for the batteries, that should help keep them cleaner. I cleaned up the battery posts and the cables. I got about 1/2 of the pack back into their pods. My help bailed out on me this weekend so I didn't get as far as I wanted. I should finish getting the pods back together tomorrow. I made a little battery dolly which has been very handy. After cleaning all of these batteries, I like these NiFe batteries. The watering system is built into the batteries, it has been done very well. I am planning on adding a line tap to each battery so I can check each of the batteries while they are in the pods. I bought the largest 7 wire cable I could get, it is 18 gauge. I wish I could find bigger so I could charge from these cables if I ever needed. Ideally it would just be for monitoring. Once I am finished putting these pods back together, I feel good about charging them at the higher AC voltage. I also fixed the watering system, mice had chews on two of the hoses. Luckily they had plenty of excess on the van so I just took out some of the excess to fix the bad lines. So thats the weekend updates.


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## order99 (Sep 8, 2008)

Did you say these were NiFe batteries? Not NiMH? If so, I would be VERY interested to see how they hold up to regular use-assuming they revive properly of course. But if these ARE NiFe, well, Jay Leno revived a Century-plus Edison he found in a 1909 Baker Electric...those are some tough Batteries!


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## Zemmo (Sep 13, 2007)

Yes these batteries are NiFe batteries, thats another reason I bought it after reading up more on it. They are made by Eagle Picher, they are 6 volt batteries that are 200 Ah. From what I have been reading, they are very resilient and take abuse very well. I have also read that these batteries actually have 200 Ah, they don't de-rate like Lead-Acid batteries do. Also unlike Lead-Acid, NiFe start out at a higher voltage (7.35 volt or so) and can be drained down pretty low (4.5 to 5.0 volts or so). If you did that to a Lead-Acid battery, it would have a short life. 

So far they don't have much storage, but I have only been charging them with the 120 volt AC outlet. Which is extremely slow charge for these batteries. It can do 220 AC single phase for a medium speed recharge or if you have it 208 AC three phase for a fast charge. After putting together the battery pack, I will be trying to charge it at 220 AC single phase. I am comfortable now with the wiring, battery condition and the watering system to try the higher charge voltage. So far these is only two cycles in the batteries at the 120 AC recharge rate. Hopefully I will start seeing more and more storage in the batteries.


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## order99 (Sep 8, 2008)

Fantastic. Hope this van works out.

And if it doesn't, gut it to the chassis and find a smaller frame!


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## Zemmo (Sep 13, 2007)

Well I think I have a direction now for the battery taps. I am going to use some network cable (cat5 or cat6) since they have 8 wires running in them and a connection plug. Those wires will only be used to monitor the voltage of the batteries. Using the network cables gives me the ability to disconnect the cable and drop the pod (if that ever has to be done again). These cables will all go into the cab for displaying the voltage. 

I will also run another set of larger wires for charging an individual battery but those wires will only go to a plug to the outside of the pod. I will use a connector to that so no wires will be ran any wheres, just to a plug. Then I will make a plug for the charger to connect to the pod and charge the battery I want.

While I was putting together the last pod, the radsok connector had some corrosion on it (the pod with corrosion in it that I mentioned earlier). So I decided to take it off to clean it but the bolt broke off. So now I need a new radsok connector for that. I am working on trying to get a replacement so that I can finish putting the batteries back together. So at the moment, I am kind of at a stand still till I get that replaced. But it does give me time to get these extra wires run for monitoring and charging. I gotta find how to get these connection onto the outside of the box but keep them dry and clean.


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## Zemmo (Sep 13, 2007)

I just finished making part of my Poor Mans BMS (monitoring) for the Van. I got the modules in the pods done. I need to run the wires in the van, I will do that during the week. I am hoping that this weekend I will get the batteries back onto the van. I decided against running the second wires to charge one battery individually. I will rely on the equalization charge that the charger does naturally. With the BMS, I will be able to monitor them and see how they do.


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## Zemmo (Sep 13, 2007)

I found a great place to run the cables! Instead of making a new hole in the chassis I was looking around the van and found a hole already in the van. Right in front of the passenger side rear tire is a little flap that covers a hole that goes right into the area where the van door track is. So I ran my 6 cables up through that, under the plastic guard, and up under the passenger seat. I will have my connection box under the passenger seat and thats how I will connect up my monitor box (which isn't made yet). I have all of those cables ran and now the battery pods are ready to be put back into the van. I am planning on doing that this weekend. My Radsok fix should work for now until I get a more of a permanent fix.


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## Zemmo (Sep 13, 2007)

I zip tied all of the water lines, the existing plastic hose clamps were pretty brittle and a lot of them were broken. So I checked each of them and have replaced about 3/4 of them with zip ties. I also got the batteries mounted back under the van. I got the van back onto its tires and drove out of the garage and then backed it back in. SUCCESS! 

Today I got the 4 prong plug for the power box that came with the van. I wired up for 240 volt single phase AC. I plugged in the van and it did come on but the driver side turn signal did not come on and neither did the battery fan. I figured those would come on once I started using the higher voltage charger. There is a hall effect amp gauge within those power boxes and it showed (if I am reading it right) the amps slowly climbed up from 2 amps up to 6.5 amps and then slowly dropped back down to 2 amps and seemed to stay there. I didn't leave it plugged to that, I just tested that part of the charger. I need to figure out why the charge indicator didn't come on or the battery box fan. After playing with that charger for a little bit the battery voltage was up to 250 volts DC. So I wanted to drive it down the driveway, I figure it would only make it down my driveway and back but thought what the heck, I might try going further. I pulled out of the garage, backed out of my driveway and into the street. The LXT device still showed plenty of voltage (247 volts). I noticed that when accelerating the LXT shows amps and when coasting it shows voltage and when regen kicks in, it shows the regen amps. Since the voltage was still high I thought I would go around the block. So I drove down the street to the stop sign, volts only dropped 2 volts (245 volts). So went down the next street, and voltage was still good (243 volts). Started the next turn which started on the way back, the voltage dropped some more and made it back to my house. I went past the house back to the first stop light and turned around and started to head back. On the way back, I got a hesitation and the low battery light came on. I got back to my driveway just fine and backed into the garage. I plugged it back into the slow 120 volt single phase AC charger since the higher voltage charger still didn't turn on the battery box fan. But that trip was 1.2 miles around trip. It cruzed along pretty good, for being a 6,000 lbs vehicle it acclerated pretty good. The amps didn't get very high maybe 30 amps, one of the benefits of high voltage. I got up to 25 mph and shifted into 2nd, the top speed I hit was 30 mph. Most of the trip I only drove 20 mph.

Anyways, after sitting for 10 years, there is a very good probability that everything will come back to life just fine.


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## Zemmo (Sep 13, 2007)

It has been a long time since my last update. I finished my poor mans BMS, I ended up getting 6 cheap DVM and just taping them up together to make a display panel. That part of it works good, I can see the voltage dropping in 1 pod (since I can only monitor 1 pod at a time). 

I have two batteries out of the 30 that aren't up to voltage like the other. Only time will tell what those two batteries do.

I bought new tires for the van and had them shipped to me. I was going to drive it to the shop to have them put them on. The shop is 2 miles away so I plugged in the van to give it a quick top off charge before driving there but when I did that POOOF Blue smoke. I let out the blue genie some how. I traced it down to the charge card. For what ever reason, the charge card blew up. So thats the problem at the moment. I either have to get the charge card fixed or by pass it with a new charger. The van is still drivable but I can't recharge it at the moment now.

I was also going to have them change out the transmission fluid, power steering fluid and brake fluid while it was in the shop. But I can't find anyone selling the suggested Trans Oil. So I need to find out what to use for that. But at the moment the van is just sitting in the garage, ready to be driven.


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## jrsavoie (Aug 1, 2008)

Zemmo said:


> It has been a long time since my last update. I finished my poor mans BMS, I ended up getting 6 cheap DVM and just taping them up together to make a display panel. That part of it works good, I can see the voltage dropping in 1 pod (since I can only monitor 1 pod at a time).
> 
> I have two batteries out of the 30 that aren't up to voltage like the other. Only time will tell what those two batteries do.
> 
> ...


You can call Amzoil or any of the major oil manufacturers and get your transmisiion fluid crossreferanced.
You could post the spec'ed trans fluid here and maybe somebody could cross it for you


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## Zemmo (Sep 13, 2007)

Yeah I thought about going with Amsoil. I bought that for my Fiero. I haven't put it in yet, but I got the oil to do it when ever. I don't know about the specs of the oil that is suppose to go into the trans. I heard from someone that if I go into a Dodge Dealer that they can get me the equivalent. It was called Emguard and I think it was a 5w-30 oil. One of these days I will have to stop in at a Dealer and see what they have to say about that oil.


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## jrsavoie (Aug 1, 2008)

You should be able to call the parts department to get the OEM part number for the oil. Other companies can cross referance it off of that.


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## Jimdear2 (Oct 12, 2008)

Zemmo said:


> Yeah I thought about going with Amsoil. I bought that for my Fiero. I haven't put it in yet, but I got the oil to do it when ever. I don't know about the specs of the oil that is suppose to go into the trans. I heard from someone that if I go into a Dodge Dealer that they can get me the equivalent. It was called Emguard and I think it was a 5w-30 oil. One of these days I will have to stop in at a Dealer and see what they have to say about that oil.


 
Amsoil, Redline or one of the others may be your best bet. 

The OEM's generally keep only 20 years of part numbers on their online systems.


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