i have a new to me 2000 holiday rambler ambassador with the 315 (i was told) HP diesel. the rv itself has many factory upgrades. it has 4 batteries in the rear passenger side compartment. i noticed the 2 chassis batteries appeared to be hooked up in parallel while the 2 house batteries appear to be in series, is this correct? i also see about an 8 gauge wire just laying in the compartment i'm guessing has to go to something like the 12volt house system? does anyone have a wiring diagram for the battery system or original pic of the way they were hooked up? the previous owner was not at all rv savvy and couldn't answer any real questions.he didn't even know how to operate the hot water system. it seems like the 12 volt system takes a few minutes to "turn on" . i've never had an rv where the 12 volt system wasn't readily available. somehow i don't think it was hooked up properly. any pics or advice would be helpful and much appreciated.
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We had an 01 Ambassador 38pbt. It had the batteries in the compartment behind the curbside rear wheel. It had 2 12 volt batteries hooked in parallel for the engine or chassis batteries. It had 4 6 volt batteries, 2 hooked in series and then the 2 series sets were hooked in parallel for the house batteries. The house batteries were charged by the inverter/charger when plugged into shore power. The engine batteries were not charged by the inverter/charger so I had a small trickle charger on them
when parked for a longer term.
Ok , if I understand you have 4;12 volt batteries in the bay 2 on the right side are for the starter Chassis . and 2 ; 12 volt on the left for house power .
Both sets MUST be in parallel or you'll feed 24 volts into the coach or chassis .
I have these pictures of Monaco battery bays , unfortunately I've marked them up many times . one shows the 2 ; 12 volt for coach the second , 4 ; 6 volt for coach .
Is the wire you have found disconnected go out of the compartment to the rear , where the inverter is normally located?
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99DSDP 3884, Freightliner, XC, CAT 3126B, 300 HP /ALLISON 3060
2000 Caravan toad, Remco & Blue Ox.
No, it's 4 12volt batteries. 2 for house, 2 for chassis. The more I thought about it the more I know it's wired wrong. Maybe that's why the guy who owned it before me had so much trouble with it. Thus is a super easy fix. Tge only thing I'm not sore about is that 8 gauge wire that looked like the end connector cam off of and was just laying in the bay.
No, it's 4 12volt batteries. 2 for house, 2 for chassis. The more I thought about it the more I know it's wired wrong. Maybe that's why the guy who owned it before me had so much trouble with it. Thus is a super easy fix. Tge only thing I'm not sore about is that 8 gauge wire that looked like the end connector cam off of and was just laying in the bay.
That picture is 2 12 volt batteries on one side and 2 6 volt batteries on the other.
The 6 volt batteries have the 3 caps. They are your house batteries.
well no wonder it wasn't working. i actually had 2-12 volt batteries here. i hooked them up in parallel and had no problem after that but the pic here was before i did that. that would lead me to believe there should be 4-6 volt batteries. 2 each in series then parallel to each other. that makes perfect sense. like i posted the previous owner knew nothing about RV's let alone this one. he bought it to go to sturgis with a friend but the friend died before he could go so the RV sat under his shed for about 2-1/2 years. his lack of knowledge makes it a bit difficult to figure out which systems were original and which have been replace except for the brakes which he spent about $6,500 on before i bought it. i have owned RV's before but none with this many batteries so after reading all of your posts then thinking it through it's really not all that difficult to grasp and everything including the house 12 volt system are now working perfectly. i did have to do a bit of re-wiring, cleaning connections and replacing worn out connectors. i consider all of that deferred maintenance but now i wouldn't be afraid to go anywhere in it. the thing runs like a clock and all systems are fully operational thanks to this forum and some good knowledgeable folks
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