1989 Barth Regal SE, Ford 460, 31 ft.

My engine battery was dead and I was rushing to jump from the car (this has worked recently). I hooked up the jumper cables with the car running and got in the coach only to see light grey smoke rising in front of the windshield. After disconnecting the jumpers (which were warm), looked inside the front engine area between the firewall and the front of the Barth. I could see smoke rising from the drivers side but couldn't detect where the smoke was coming from (its really hard to see over there). When lifting the engine cover off on the inside of the coach, there was no smoke or smell. It was just down in front of the firewall on the drivers side

Now my headlights, marker lights, cigarette lighter, instrument cluster lights, tail lights are not working. I checked all of the fuses in the dash and one labeled radio was shot. replacing that fuse with a larger fuse just popped the new fuse right away.

Where do I start? Seems like something is shorting out on bare metal. The engine started right up without the jumper cables after that... The battery box with inverter looked fine. Any thoughts? Thanks!

It may be hard to look in the area where you detected the smoke, but that's the best place to start, look for a burned or melted wire and trace it, probably find a faulty something or a short to ground. Good luck!

I have specific knowlege of the GM Regals but less so with the Ford chassis.

Assuming the jumper cables were connected with correct polarity, it sounds like one of the main fusible links has overheated. The main cables will handle the rated current of the the alternator, ie about 100 amps. A dead battery or two can draw that much with a jump and may have smoked a wire.

As Duane suggested, follow the heavy wires back from the batteries to the chassis.

If the cable polarity was reversed even momentarily, the current would also be very high. The diodes in the alternator will short, also if there is a diode charge splitter between the house and coch batteries, that may have fried.

Keep us posted.

Thanks, guys, for the guidance. I found this puppy hanging from what I think is the isolator (passenger side of motor). Hopefully the weather cooperates and I can get the new fusible link on. From the Regal schematics on here, it looks like it might be the wire for the Aux Start. I also ran across a blown auto fuse above the radiator labeled Aux Start.

Thank you Dave and Lynn for patiently posting the pictures with our problematic Photobucket procedure. Your persistence shows we can work with photobucket. We have over 2 meg of pictures in photobucket.

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Your problem also shows the sites how useful Barthmobile.com is to owners of any motor home.

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Now, back to topic. Do you know what caused the fuse to burn up? Did you reverse the polarity of the jumper cables?

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Good luck with your sale?!

quote:

Originally posted by Bertha


Thanks, guys, for the guidance. I found this puppy hanging from what I think is the isolator (passenger side of motor). Hopefully the weather cooperates and I can get the new fusible link on. From the Regal schematics on here, it looks like it might be the wire for the Aux Start. I also ran across a blown auto fuse above the radiator labeled Aux Start.

Check the AUX starter solenoid and starter along with the battery separator. I had a similar problem, mine was the AUX solenoid. Drained my main battery when I turned the key.