Lucky me! Look what I found!
https://www.atsg.us/atsg/blog/fordescapehybrid3/

Almost as good as a video! I also found a lot of photos of disassembled inverter converters from different years from parts for sale on ebay!

 

That's awesome. More comments coming (busy) but your troubleshooting and diagnostic reasoning skills are excellent. I'm betting you will track this down get it solved. And yes, those John Kelly videos are top-notch. He's everybody's awesome old gearhead uncle who has forgotten more about cars than most people will ever know, with his inimitable low-drama, smoky dry humor, deep-dive expository persona. As a young man he was an Eagle Scout before he began his career with cars, and I recognize the mindset. Those kids teach themselves to Be Prepared and Learn to Do Things at a young age. It goes to show you that there are some awesome people out there at places like relatively obscure state schools who really know how to teach. He was almost killed in a 2019 accident by -- get this -- a distracted driver!! I'm glad he made it and is back doing what he does so well.

 

Fascinating at that link: The oil/fluid pump assembly looks Main Battle Tank bulletproof. It has a built-in pressure regulating valve AND a ---===<<<FILTER>>>===---, Luke.


All kidding aside, this underscores the importance of 60k mile fluid changes. You do not want that valve getting clogged up and sticky and unless you are willing to get in there and change that filter, you don't want the fluid getting old, breaking down, and so forth. The MECS liquid cooling means you're going to be draining/refilling if you take it apart. Just as importantly: look at those honkin' huge capacitors: "there are three capacitors rated at 450 volts and 125 amps each."

We know what happens to lots of electrolytic capacitors as they age. I am *cravenly* interested to know what those part numbers are and who manufactured them.

And we have to love nice, easy-to-decipher URLs. Your link is Part 3 of 3, here are parts 2 and 1.

https://www.atsg.us/atsg/blog/fordescapehybrid2/

https://www.atsg.us/atsg/blog/fordescapehybrid/

Good stuff, Mr. Hengst.

 

Caps on the boards look solid. The big caps should be good too, I haven't opened too many things with failed 400v caps. Mainly its the small ones that die.

 

It's fascinating to see them and know that they could potentially be removed, tested and replaced if necessary. Interesting for you @ShadyEscape also, in Part 2 they say, with no small amount of drama:

"It is absolutely necessary to use the manufacturer’s recommended coolant so as to avoid catastrophic damage resulting in near bankruptcy repair costs." Well, indeed!

And it's interesting that they make no differentiation between MERCON V and MERCON LV as the recommended fluid - they say MERCON LV, and only 4.3 quarts?

Well, the manual for a 2007 (I just downloaded it) says:

"5.3 quarts (5.0L)*3 (the asterisk 3 says: "indicates only approximate dry-fill capacity") and the fluid recommended is XT-5-QM / MERCON V

My 2010 manual says:

"5.3 quarts (5.0L) with the same asterisk but XT-10-QLV / MERCON LV"

Why did they switch? These kinds of things start to sound like hairsplitting, but what's the real difference between MERCON V and LV in the context of these vehicles and why did Ford decide to go with the newer fluid? MERCON V is obviously still available.

Don't get me wrong, this is a good series of articles, but it's fascinating to see the differences in "official" pronouncements. Now we know why the world of automotive repair and maint. is so interesting.

 

Whatever I have in my MEK is obviously not leading to overheat. So as long as it's not rusting everything up it should be ok for a few more weeks. I assume they don't want people trying green antifreeze in there.

I read somewhere LV has less friction. They probably developed a better fluid and went with it. The BSG ford tech youtube said to buy 7 qts and now I see 4.3/5.3. Guess I'll find out. What stops you from using LV in the older cars? That's the real question. Other fords let you upgrade to mercon V from previous fluids too.

 

Finally, my last comment for the night here: If you are still getting the P0562 code, you still have a problem somewhere. It may not be a big problem, it may be intermittent, but the computer is throwing the code for a reason. I think you need to keep trying to root out the cause of that code by checking everything else and eliminating every other possibility before attempting to dismantle things more deeply. You are not getting overheating codes, you're not getting "hard stop" codes and your car is running pretty well. Once you start tearing deeper into things, you always run the risk of introducing problems that didn't exist before - and maybe never identifying the simple thing that caused the problem to begin with. Just my $0.02 of troubleshooting philosophy. Using your (new to you) car as a lab experiment can be fun but there are pitfalls.

 

A few more thoughts to put down on paper for everyone following along.

1. Two of my concerns regarding taking the inverter converter cover off were (a) not knowing if I was opening up a liquid cooled area (thus necessitating draining coolant first) and (b) concerns about destroying a gasket and not have a replacement.

(a) I am 100% confident at this point that the top cover can be removed without worrying about coolant. The ATSG blog leads me to conclude that the only coolant to worry about is the MEKS coolant that runs underneath the GCU and MCU modules (the other side of the metal that had the thermal grease smeared all over it). My guess is that until you remove the plate covering the transaxle cooling chambers (fig 29 and fig 30), you won't run into any coolant.

(b) In one of the photos I found on ebay, there was a reusable cork gasket attached to the inverter converter cover. There were about 5 inverter converter covers on ebay, only one of them had the cork gasket, but seeing as how I don't see any silicon or paper gasket residue on any of the lips of the covers or the place it bolts too, me thinks that the gasket was mainly used to keep dust and water out, so I think it would be safe to use a good silicon gasket sealer if the gasket gets destroyed during cover removal.


2. Notice the connector on the back side of the cover. As far as I can tell, this doesn't go to anything. Thus, I am guessing it is an interlock device that shuts down the system in the event someone has removed the cover while trying to run the vehicle. Since I only see two contacts on the connector, my guess is you could remove the cover and jumper whatever that connects too if you wanted to bypass the interlock. Sounds like a risky endeavor. It is comforting to see how much effort Ford engineers put into keeping people from electrocuting themselves with 300V. Having said that, those three beefy capicitors are probably not discharged and I am pretty sure someone can still get a nasty shock and a shock that is enough to stop a heart if delivered at the wrong time (at least that is what I was taught). CORRECTION: From https://www.atsg.us/atsg/blog/fordescapehybrid/ "Next, replace the cover in the “SERVICE SHIPPING” location. Wait 5 to 15 minutes for the HV capacitors to discharge and then using your CAT III voltmeter and Class zero rated rubber gloves, check the HV circuits to make certain the voltage level is below 12 volts." It is likely that removing the service wires the system in a way that HV capacitors start discharging, thus the beefy capacitors MIGHT be safe to touch after 15 minutes... who knows, I definitely wouldn't assume so, but a quick voltmeter check of each cap would be the safest things to do.

3. Totally unrelated to the topic at hand: In the ATSG blog they said "It uses a damper plate assembly instead of a torque converter" which I found interesting, only because I hadn't heard of such a thing. Google helped me sort out what they were talking about: https://www.sonnax.com/tech_resource...at-s-the-story

Seems like ATSG should revise their statement to: "It uses a dampered lockup torque converter instead of a fluid filled turbine torque converter". Hopefully I got the terminilogoy correct. I didn't know there were other types of torque converters used on automatic transmissions.

EDIT: I am trying to read more about these types of torque converters and I am coming up confused. It looks like there are lots of different way to implement torque converters, I think you can even have fluid filled torque converters with clutches in them. So much that I don't know.

4. "Just my $0.02 of troubleshooting philosophy. Using your (new to you) car as a lab experiment can be fun but there are pitfalls." I know you are right. Hopefully I have the willpower to abstain from opening the present before Christmas, that inverter converter cover is glaring at me everytime I pop the hood, I think the engineers put it right up front staring at me in the face as a way to tempt me. Ford Engineers: "We can save Ford millions in warranty claims if we put the cover here, no one will be able to resist peaking inside, and as soon as the cover's interlock circuit is triggered and logged, BAM, warranty voided!"

5. Anyone have an idea where one could find datasheets, service details, and exploded parts diagrams about the inverter converter? I can't imagine that Ford really wants to people to replace the entire transaxle assembly if only the TCU, a large cap, GCU, or MCU failed. I know the entire transaxle assembly is made by a third party that sells transaxles to multiple manufactureres, so maybe it is written in a contract somewhere that the units will remain unservicable.

 

I would love to have a proper wiring diagram/schematic for the inverter/converters (and everything else) on this car. It would answer your question about that "interlock" forthwith. Big high voltage capacitors are enough to make anyone sane cautious. They're like guns: you always treat every gun as if it is loaded, even if you "think" it's not. A relative of mine used to own and repair his own IBM mainframes. They were ~208V 100 AMP 3-phase AC power. The motor/generator boxes had some really impressive capacitors in them, and a big flywheel that would spool up for a minute or more like a turbine engine when you hit the main power ON, charging the capacitor bank so that when the main relays lit, the instantaneous power demand (fans, motors, power supplies, on the disk and tape drives, CPU, etc., etc.) didn't brown out a city block. And that was one of the "small" mainframes. He recalls that the M/G set on a 360/75 was 208V 500A 3-PH. That for a machine that is 1/10,000 (if that!) as powerful as an iPhone 12 Max Pro. IBM used to train its service engineers *never* to wear jewelry of any kind. One guy my relative knew ignored that and one day got his wedding band across a couple of live 208V terminals, and the ring instantly became "Goldfinger," Mr. Bond.

Anyway, I'm rambling, telling old IBM mainframe beer stories. That gasket looks like maybe it is a "hybrid" itself - cork/elastomer, for the best of both worlds. Again that's one of those engineering choices they presumably made with some consideration rather than slapping a rubber gasket on there? It's odd that you only see it on 1 of 5 photos.

Question 5: I would love to know that myself. It would be very helpful to have a data repository on these things as the cars age.

 

I think I'm going to subscribe to the Motorcraft 72 hour deal and see what it offers. Maybe this weekend when I have some time. The transaxles were made (or at least designed) by Aisin. At least the HD-10s and HD-20s. I think the HD-30s from 2013-on were Ford in-house, John Kelly talks about it in his video.