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[bumpp]

Hi guys,

New member here with a "drive by" question, hope you don't mind the noise.

There is a theft recovery 2017 FX up for auction on copart tomorrow, which I am interested in for an ATV EV conversion: https://www.copart.com/lot/49627529

The battery pack looks to be intact (with maybe a bit of a dent...), I'm wondering if it would be possible for a thief to remove the cells while leaving the battery casing behind (for the insurance company to later reassemble into a seemingly present pack)?

I've been all through the unofficial manual wiki, and have plied by best googling skills, with this youtube video showing the best internal view of a pack I can find:   This is obviously not the same pack, and possibly just a brick from a bike other than the FX.

Does the epoxy potting material make removing the sides of the FX 7.2 pack impossible without deforming them?

Thanks again

[NEW2elec]

First off no I have not been inside a FX battery.  I can't say 100% that the battery is in good working order, but what your talking about would be like a crook stealing a car for the pistons.  The battery is well sealed and it uses pouch cells from Farasis.  Breaking open the outer case would result in it being beat up and bent up pretty bad.

You can check out Rich Rebuilds YT channel and see what all he went through to use a Zero SR to make a rat rod.

So I'd say there are still pouch cells in the battery, yes.

Good luck.

[BrianTRice@gmail.com]

The skill required to perform this is not common and the specificity of intent to do this exact scam is unheard of.

Also, we've never heard of such a thing.

So, you mentioning it is probably the closest anyone has gotten to performing the act. The battery modules should weigh about 45lbs and you can check the BMS lights to confirm that cells are present and rough charge state if you're really that worried.

[bumpp]

Thanks for the feedback guys.

It turns out I was not eligible to bid without enlisting a broker anyway.  I did watch the auction though, it went for $1400 "on approval", if anyone is curious.  Which is too bad, because that number was below my pain threshold.  Beforehand I dropped the $6 for an autoautions.io report, and the insurance company previously rejected a $2200 high bid because it didn't hit the reserve.  So either some insurance guy made a bad call and missed out on $800, or it will be up again later.

I've watched the Rich Rebuilds Zero saga.  And also the Samcrac auction dealings and his videos about deceptive auctions, which is why I was looking for any possibility for the battery to not be legit.  Even if the cells were present, there was no way to tell they weren't junk / depleted beyond recovery as I would have been unable to personally inspect it due to location.

And your logic makes sense, any EV conversion enthusiast thief looking for just cells would harvest more than just cells, and take the pack as a complete unit.

Thanks again for your input! On to the next one!