engine won't turn over

[TEDDE]

Went tonight to start my 05 holiday rambler septre and turned the key and nothing but clicking. The tach and gas gauge went crazy up and down, the alarms were going off and the engine lights were going crazy as well. I tried to use the battery boost and nothing but clicks were heard. I started my genny thinking of a dead battery. Let it run for awhile and still the symptions as above were happening. I installed new batteries during the winter. I have a solar panel on my roof for the coach batteries. I have always closed the coach and chassis batteries off with the disconnect switch. I held my hand on the solinoid and felt the clicks while my wife turned the key. It did not turn over..it all seems like a dead battery but why would the gauges go crazy and the battery boost did not work?? My coach has a echo charger installed. How do I check the solinoid??I left the disconnect on to see if the echo charger will charge the batteries. The batterey boost thing has me stumped..

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I will go throught the archieves to find an answer but thought I would post it as well..Thx Ted

[bdpreece]

My money is on low voltage either corroded/loose connections or a dead battery. I had a similar problem this spring when I left my coach at the dealers and they ran the batteries down. Running the generator did not help as the generator will charge the house batteries first. Using the battery boost switch for me was not enough and they had to bring a tractor over and use jumper cables. Even then they had to let the tractor run on high idle for a few minutes with the jumper cables attached before I had enough power to get it started.

[JWT]

Try charging your engine batteries, you need some voltage in your engine batteries before the battery boost will transfer to the engine batteries.I've had the same thing happen when I let the engine batteries go to low, as for the gauges going screwy, I also had the same symptoms when the voltage was low. Good luck.

[TEDDE]

I found my problem..The batteries were indeed new but when the dealer put the cabels on he didn't clean them. They were all covered with grease. I cleaned the grease off and sandpapered the cable ends and used shake proof washers under the cable ends to bite into the ends and battery terminals and it started right up. I ran my genny for three hours thinking of a dead battery as mentioned above so I took my meter and it read 12.8 volts. Sometimes it is the little things that fool you..Thanks to all who replied..Ted

[wa8yxm]

Every time I read a "Won't turn over" thread I think of things like the scene in a movie (Double Trouble) I just watched, Short story, then my expierence:

The movie plot: Two identical twin body builder brothers do the East/West bit, One going to work for the Police as an Officer, and the other becomming a "Client" of the Department of Corrections (Prisoner) Well, they meet once again, professionally (Both of their professions) and wind up working together to break a case.... They need to get this jerk's attention, So he comes out and they have turned his car over (it's sitting on it's roof)

Yup, engines are not supposed to turn over, they are supposed to remain upright. Crankshafts turn over.


Enough humor: Same thing happened to me.. I turned the key and NOHING (Well one click) Hit the AUX start and made it home.. Once home I crawled under to where the battery hides with my load tester in hand, Unhooked one lead and applied tester.. Showed full charge, cranked up the amps, passed the test with flying color (Green) Re-connected and the engine started.

I've had to do that 3 times so far, Last time I took the Dremel and it's took box down with me and cleaned and polished the wrong type of connector that they put on that battery.. Yup.. It's a GM type, side terminal, never supposed to need cleaning, battery... Guess what.. They lied. it needs cleaning, often.