DIY Nissan Leaf Battery Swap Adapted from a post by Cor van de Water
I have devised a way to swap a Nissan Leaf battery pack with minimal and standard tools on a level floor. It's preferable to carry
this out in a side-by-side 2 car garage. However, you can do it almost anywhere, as long as you have a space beside the Leaf
that's a minimum of 4ft wide.
You'll need:
A standard mover's furniture dolly
A wheeled hydraulic jack
Two axle stands
The tools required are:
Metric ratchet set with 10, 12, 13, 16, and 17mm sockets
3ft water pipe or other ratchet handle extension for extra leverage
T30 secure Torx™ driver
Small flat blade screwdriver
Large flat blade screwdriver
Break-off knife
Standard garden gloves
The following additional tools are helpful, but not essential:
Needle nose pliers to remove wire clips (the small flat blade screwdriver will also work if you push them sideways)
Straight pry bar or second large screwdriver
The gloves are not for high voltage insulation, but to avoid hand injuries when you lift the module stacks out of the shell,
as they are heavy.
I have managed always to lift the 3 stacks with 2 persons: the two quarter stacks are only 100 lbs each, but the half-pack stack
(24 modules on top of each other) weighs 200 lbs and requires two healthy individuals and preferably a second dolly or cart to roll
it around. I have used long bolts or screw drivers through the 4 holes in the corners to act as handles to make lifting that 200
lbs more manageable.
The complete process takes most of an afternoon. Here is a 44 second timelapse video clip: