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Triple Creek · 05-01-2015, 04:34 PM

I apparently did this to myself!
Coach hadn't been moved in a year or so, and I decided to be a nice caring owner, so I decided to install new house and coach batteries. I thought I carefully installed all the wires on the new batteries just as they had come off the old batteries. Well, now I have problems. When driving down the road, I loose all power to my dash and transmission (it doesn't like it). However, if I flip the switch and tie the house batteries in with the coach batteries, all is well. If I run the generator, all is well.

What did I do to myself and more importantly, how do I fix??

Freightliner chassis, so I've got lots and lots of wires on those battery posts.

Wizard · 05-01-2015, 05:06 PM

Sounds like one of the small wires may be on the wrong battery post.

I have started taking pictures before disconnecting anything and have some color coding tape just to be sure.

Bigd9 · 05-01-2015, 05:11 PM

What coach and year do you have? Maybe someone will have pictures they can share with you.

twinboat · 05-01-2015, 05:57 PM

If it gets you down the road , before giving you a problem, you may just have a loose connection or broken wire, on one of the ring terminals.

Tug on , and tighten every connection. One could be laying loose, on the terminal.

Gary RVRoamer · 05-02-2015, 07:36 AM

If the engine starts and runs ok, you must have the basics hooked up ok. However, it sounds as though the chassis battery voltage is falling until finally the transmission, etc., starts having problems. Then you boost it up with the house battery battery and its ok again.

That suggests that the engine alternator is not producing power to run the engine and keep the battery charged. There is a small wire that comes from battery or ignition switch that triggers (excites) it, so perhaps that got disconnected or broken.

KSagal · 05-02-2015, 08:00 AM

I have a much older Southwind (88) and recently found an odd problem after a battery change.

The primary ground line from the chassis battery goes (on mine) to the engine block. There is an additional ground line that is common with the two house batteries and goes to the frame of the MH.

After I changed batteries, the ground line failed at the engine, not the end I had moved at the battery. It may have been a coincidence, but the timing was there just the same.

My symptom was slightly different than yours, in that when I tried to start the engine, everything in the dash would go dead, and the engine would not start. Then, after a while, sometimes one minute, some times 30, everything would just come on again.

When I used the dash switch to engage my house batteries to start the engine, or what-ever, these symptoms went away. I presume it was because then the other ground line was engaged, and normal current flow was restored.

It may not be the same issue for you, but in reading your story, there were enough parallels for me to think this may get you thinking in a productive direction.

By the way, I traced out that ground line, removed it from the stud on the engine intake manifold, sanded all connections, added a corrosion inhibitor, reconnected, and all this went away.

Good luck.

Triple Creek · 05-03-2015, 06:00 AM

Karl, thanks for your reply. As soon as I saw what you posted, I just laughed at myself and realized what you described is actually my same problem.

My coach had been sitting for a long time and plugged in. When I went to crank it, there was NOTHING. No dash lights, no grunts from the engine, just the sounds of silence. I therefore concluded it was the batteries and that started my adventure to replace. Once I pushed and plugged all the new batteries, I went to crank it, and NOTHING! Being the sharp individual that I am, I quickly concluded that something was wrong. Therefore I set about cleaning all my wiring that went on the battery terminals. After that, I went back to turn the key and I only got a spit fiz out of the dash lights. Now just totally frustrated, I had quickly concluded that I must have left a wife off one of the terminals and therefore resorted to looking at the pictures that I had taken. Everything looked good. Then I resorted to feeling around in that dark cabinet to try and detect some loose wire that I missed and wasn’t connected. I pulled and tugged at the many wiring harness looking for a loose wire. There was no loose wire to be found.

In total frustration, I returned to the scene of the accident, and hit the ignition key. Guess what it fired right up. I was so happy. I didn’t know what I did, but it worked.

Therefore, I packed up the motorhome and then hit the road. Just 2 miles down the road, I lost power. Then it would come back on. Then it would go off. On and on.

Yesterday I had my head back in the battery compartment just sitting there looking at all the wires again. You know what, I remember that there is a ground line from the chassis battery to the engine block. There is another ground line that is common with the two house batteries and goes to the frame of the MH just like yours. I’ll be crawling around cleaning and tightening those grounds today. Thanks for the tip