Finally got nice weather and took a great trim to the Sonoma Coast. When I tried to start up this morning all batteries dead. I thought Barths were wired to protect the starter battery from drain by the use of house power (ran the dc refer for two days). Any ideas of chasing the problem and are the batteries cooked. I have a 79 with 350 engine. thanks for any help. joe

quote:

Originally posted by jenandjoe:
Any ideas of chasing the problem and are the batteries cooked. I have a 79 with 350 engine. thanks for any help. joe

Do you have a test light & a VOM? If you have it then start off at the batteries to see if you have voltage. We all need more info to help you trace this out.

The first thing to do is charge both batteries fully with a good charger and have them tested. You can test them yourself if you have a hydrometer. You should have one, anyway. I also use a Midtronics conductance tester, as do many battery retailers, but Trojan doesn't like them. They seem to be a little too complicated for some retail help to use, so watch out. A load bank tester is best if you can find a retailer who will use it to test your batteries. Around here, Pep Boys and Autozone use a load bank tester.

quote:

Originally posted by jenandjoe:
I thought Barths were wired to protect the starter battery from drain by the use of house power. joe

You are correct. The chassis battery should not have run down. There is a thing called an isolator somewhere up front, possibly above the radiator on the passenger side. It should have three wires going to it, one on each terminal. The center terminal should have a wire from the alternator, one other terminal should connect to the chassis battery and the remaining terminal should connect to the coach battery. There is a possibility that a PO has changed that. Check that first. While you're in there, remove the wires one at a time and remove all corrosion. That is a hostile environment up there.

Check your emergency start switch. With charged batteries, you should hear a clunk when it is activated. Most Barths have a momentary switch, but maybe yours has an ON OFF MOM switch. It could have been left in the ON position.

quote:

(ran the dc refer for two days).

That could have been the reason the coach battery ran down. The fridge really eats DC power. It should only be run on battery when the engine is running or you have external power connected.

Now---did you run out and buy a multimeter and hot light like Bill NY said?

If so, start the engine and read voltage at each battery. Should be above 13. Charge the batteries either with the engine or an external charger. When the batteries are fully charged and the engine is off, set the meter to its max amps and connect the leads for that setting. Disconnect the chassis battery lead and put the meter in series. Turn on a bunch of lights in the coach and read the meter. It should read zero. If it shows a current draw, there is a wiring mistake or a stuck emergency start relay. That relay parallels the batteries for an emergency start if the chassis battery is low. The only time the batteries are paralleled is when that relay is closed. With the meter, check the switch and the relay.

Do those things and get back to us.

Thanks Bill N.Y. and bill h no auto today (jen's across the bay) so I'll get a meter and hot light tomorrow. Charging the batteries now. This Barth has 2 Diehard Marine batteries in a box under the floor by the door. There is a solenoid in the battery box that is pretty rusted up. I'll be cleaning that up. Also the isolater is in the engine access that is used to add oil, water etc. This one has 2wires on one post, 3 wires on one post and 1 wire on the third post. Two of the wires haave in-line fuses. Also the engine battery has an on/off switch. Can switching it off prevent draining the engine battery til I get the problem fixed?? thanks again...joe

quote:

Originally posted by jenandjoe:
Also the engine battery has an on/off switch. Can switching it off prevent draining the engine battery til I get the problem fixed?? thanks again...joe

Don't know why the engine battery should have a switch, but I would definitely shut it off. Are you sure it is an on/off switch? Could it be a paralleling switch? Some folks like to put in a paralleling switch to avoid the .7 volt drop inherent in most isolators.

quote:

Originally posted by bill h:
Could it be a paralleling switch? Some folks like to put in a paralleling switch to avoid the .7 volt drop inherent in most isolators.

This makes the most sense. If the parallel switch was on it would have killed off the starter battery.

Not sure about parallel switch. It's one of those things some people use to prevent theft and such. It's on the battery neg pole and the switch is lifted to cut off the ground from the battery. As you can tell, I'm pretty dumb about this elec stuff. thanks for the help...joe

quote:

Originally posted by jenandjoe:
Not sure about parallel switch.

An isolator allows charging of both sets of batteries without loosing power on the starting batteries. If your parked the house batteries could get run down to zero without affecting the starter battery. If there is a parallel switch and it was "bridging" both sets of batteries it would kill the other set.

If you have a solenoid switch on the dash that is your emergency start, then that electrically "bridges" the battery banks.

The solenoid should be hooked up to a momentary on-off switch so as not to kill your batteries. Keep in mind that these solenoids could get hung up and drain your batteries.

I'm going to guess that your always plugged into house current and that when camping you are running your generator or your plugged in. Since your not using either the batteries got run down. If your plugged in over the winter then you might have a problem. You might have a power drain condition.

How old are the batteries - how did you store and keep your batteries charged over the winter - did you smell sulfur while charging? Any additional info will help no matter how small!

quote:

Originally posted by jenandjoe:
As you can tell, I'm pretty dumb about this elec stuff

Don't sweat it. Ask away. We all would like to help you tackle this problem!

quote:

Originally posted by jenandjoe:
Not sure about parallel switch. It's one of those things some people use to prevent theft and such. It's on the battery neg pole and the switch is lifted to cut off the ground from the battery. As you can tell, I'm pretty dumb about this elec stuff. thanks for the help...joe

Joe, it sounds like you've got it right, and it is a shut off switch, not a parallel switch. One never knows just what a PO has done to a vintage coach.

And don't call yourself dumb. You are smart enough to choose a Barth, aren't you? We all need to learn in different areas.

Anybody got a good site where I can ask a computer question? That is my "need to learn" area.

We've only owned the Barth for a couple of months. We think the PO normally camped with elec hookup. We just drove it from San Francisco to TX and back with camping usually with elec hookups. Here in No. Calif. most of the great spots are no hookup. We had one trip with no problem and this last one with the battery drain. We won't leave the ac refer on again. I've found two solenaids, one in the house battery box and one in the engine box.I replaced the engine solenoid, because after, replacing the exhaust manifold gaskets, I could not start the engine. The solenaid would only click. Like a dummy, I replaced the solenaid and still no start. Found a wire disconnected, made the connection and it started. All batteries appeared to be charged. I started the generator and attached a charger and the dial showed areading of 2. Since no freezing weather here, I assume no "winter" storage. I'm trying to find the age of the three batteries. Try to stay optomistic since we really love this coach. joe

THREAD DRIFT WARNING!!!

quote:

Originally posted by bill h:
Anybody got a good site where I can ask a computer question? That is my "need to learn" area.

You could try this guy. He always answers every question and seems very eager to help. He's a little bit on the Geezer/Geek side but I have found him to be quite energetic with his responses!

Shields up!

Bill N.Y.

First, in my Breakaway, the converter DOES NOT charge the engine battery.

bill h, if you have a computer question, PM me or post ...I can help, if only by supplying a URL for reference...

Well, until we hear from Jenandjoe, we will just have to talk to each other...............

Rusty, mine is like yours. I don't think many RVs have the converter charging the engine battery unless the batteries are paralleled intentionally. Heck, lots of converters don't even charge the coach batteries, they just carry the DC load.

And thanks for the offer on the computer help. I finally got up the nerve to reset my bios and was able to bumble my way through my problem.

GEEKTALK ALERT!!!

If you switched the jumper from one pair of three pins to the other, then back, you went back to factory default settings. You now have three points towards you Geek Brown Belt.

However, what got the settings off factory default? If you previously were messing about configuring the BIOS (other than resetting the time and date), that's another six points!

Huh?