Battery Box Damage

[2Labs]

I was taking a look at our steps the other day - they have a bit of play in them sometimes when you step on them. I think that it's because they haven't extended fully before someone steps on them - but anyway, I bent over to take a look at the mechanism and was horrified at what I saw underneath!

The back corner of the fiberglass battery box had broken away and was sheared nearly across the whole back of the box. The house batteries were tilted down and had I not emergency/temporarily addressed this, I am pretty sure that we would have been driving down the road wondering why we lost power all of the sudden - because the batteries could very well have fallen out!

We've been on the road since early September and I know that the batteries were not like that when we left, or at other places in our travels. I'm not sure when this damage happened, but it must have been over the past couple of weeks.

I'm very glad that we were visiting with some family as I had access to a few things/tools that I would normally not have access to while travelling. I have the bottom of the box strapped up now, and we did do about 150 miles of travel yesterday and it all seems ok for the immediate time - but now I need to come up with a better, permanent fix.

Has anyone else run into this problem and come up with a good replacement solution?

FYI while I was under there devising and implementing the fix, I noticed that the screws that hold the molded battery box to the front door frame all "missed" their mark when they were installed 5/6 years ago. The installer/builder at NRV got the screws through the outer door baseplate, but when they "hit" the molded battery box they all shifted downward, so they did not make any contact with the battery box - that totally explains why the steps had a little shimmy in them when you stepped on them.

Regrettably this just another one of the poor workmanship areas that I have found the longer we own this coach and do work/maintenance on it. I still do feel that the NRV coach as a whole is nice, but I'm finding quite a few areas where things just weren't checked or put together quite right. The squeaky dash drove me crazy when we first got the coach and I spent an afternoon taking the entire dash out to find the squeaks that were resolved with only a few properly placed and installed screws and bolts.





















For this temporary fix I drilled 2 new holes in the box above the batteries, used a piece of wood underneath the box and strapped it all the way around. I also added a couple of small metal straps to the board *just* in case the strap loosens up - so that the board doesn't become another flying projectile down the road.

While fiberglass is relatively strong, I am really surprised that the entire battery box is fiberglass with no other means of added support. Poor design in my mind.

Off to the drawing board for a permanent fix

[Paul R. Haller]

Time to buy some 1 1/2 angle Iron and weld up new battery boxes that are bolted to the frame. I have had to this many times when adding batteries but I never actually had to repair an existing box. Poor workmanship permeates the RV industry. Sad but true.
-Paul R. Haller-

[RJay]

Your permanent fix is fiberglass matting and epoxy. It's a fairly simple job just a little messy. It looks like the battery box was too thin to begin with and needs reinforcing. If you can't do it any good body shop should be able to fix you up better than new.

[JJH3rd]

Thanks for this cautionary tale. Did you replace the 6V patteries with these 12v models? My 05 Dolphin has 12v batteries that the previous owner installed so I now wonder if I need to re-enforce the battery box with a metal strap anchored to the frame.

[RJay]

I like the idea of the enclosed battery box, it keeps the batteries dry and from picking up road dirt and salts. But a good battery box is vented to handle the off gassing from charging and discharging. Your fiberglass box could easily be adapted and if it can be removed for the repair all the better.

[2Labs]

Thanks everyone for the replies ...

For clarification, the batteries that are in place were there when we purchased this coach used about 5 months ago. We've put nearly 4,000 miles on the MH since then and have had a few fixes that we've had to apply, but this is certainly the biggest to date.

As RJay noted we can repair this with some fiberglass matting and epoxy, which is likely what we'll do - along with adding some angle iron supporting that Paul mentioned. As for removing the box, it does not appear that this is something that can easily happen, so we'll just have to repair it in place.

For reference, this is an enclosed and vented battery box - there are a number of large holes drilled into it to allow for some venting, but it's very clear that *something* caused this box to fail - not sure what, but either way it has failed and needs some repair.

[Bedwards]

Mine was doing the same thing except it was cracking on the other end. Happen to catch it before it got as bad as yours. I bolted a length of angle iron to the back side of the step frame and the other flat side is up against the bottom of the box. Probably should reinforce the whole bottom with more glass because it diffently seems to thin for holding 3 batteries, but so far so good.

[garym114]

When I bought mine in 2006 I saw how the battery box was laid out and had read of a couple of failures like yours.
I adjusted how the weight was distributed by cutting styrofoam blocks and placing them on one end of the batteries so the middle battery was pushed away from the door and the two outside batteries were pushed towards the door. Then I mounted a C channel across the bottom for more support.

[RJay]

Based on where it has failed more fiberglass matting in those areas would provide reinforcement. It's possible the failure is due to poor manufacturing either in not enough epoxy being used or an improper formulation.

[Jeff H]

Make sure you do some maintenance on the steps too.
Ours was acting like you mentioned and next thing we knew, it failed very expensively.
Tighten things up, lube etc.