Truck55
Florida
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Joined: 08/12/2008
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Hi all, I have a question for all you gear heads out there. I have a 94 Bounder with a ford 460 engine. I had it running the other night and all of a sudden the charging guage went to 0 and ran the batteries down. I thought alt. I took it off and had it rebuilt. It bench tested great. Brought it home and installed it. Recharged my batteries to full charge. Started the engine and was charging great. But after a few minutes did the same thing again. I then hooked up the charger and started it again. It ran great and was charging great, but after a few minutes it again quit charging and ran down the batteries. Does anyone know if there is another switch somewhere. When it quits charging it makes a click. Each time i start it it runs and charges great for a few minutes and then click and it stops charging.
Thanks in advance for any help on this problem
Dan B
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Mandalay Parr
Phoenix, AZ
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Joined: 07/09/2004
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Could your batteries be bad?
Jerry Parr
Full-time
2005 Mandalay 40B
Cat C7 350, 4 Slides
Blue Ox, Brake Buddy
2004 CR-V Toad
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ScottG
Bothell Wa.
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Joined: 02/25/2005
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Does it have an external voltage regulator? If so then that's probably it.
Scott, Grace and Wesly
2003 Dodge 3500 4x4 Cummins (lightly bombed),
2004 Forest River 25RKS many, many mods.
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wolfe10
Texas
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Check for a battery isolator (trace leads from alternator/battery). They DO fail, sometimes good when cool and open circuit when they heat up.
Wouldn't hurt to tighten all connections between alternator and batteries.
Brett Wolfe
1993 Foretravel 36' U-240
Cat 3116, Allison 3060
Caterpillar RV Engine Owner's Club: www.catrvclub.org
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Rvndave
Medina, Ohio
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Joined: 01/23/2004
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The click makes it sound like a solenoid to me. I would try to find the part thats clicking and troubleshoot from there.
2003 Jayco 308fbs eagle 33' tt, towed by a 2003 Ram 3500 slt, quad cab dually, cummins diesel ho, trailer towing package, with 6 speed manual. Hauls better 1/2, 3 kids, myself, and a 2003 ez go clays car.. I have added so far, neon lights, clearance lights, back up lights, black light, lift kit, mud tires, and everything necessary to make the golf cart street legal. It's now ready to spend the winter in the garage for more mods. More neon, strobe lights, alarm, a pa system, maintance, and whatever else that comes along. This golf cart does wheelies and travels thru 7 inches of mud when need be. Two honda eu2000i gens twinned to supply the electrical power. Latest addition an 04 Honda Goldwing. [url]http://www.hometown.aol.com/rvnagain/myhomepage/profile.html[url]
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YC 1
Yuba City Calif.
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Joined: 01/11/2005
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What do you mean by "the batteries ran down"?
Are you saying the batteries ran down in a few minutes ???
A fully charged good condition battery will not run down in a few minutes. I have seen all kinds of crazy situations with 30 years of working with car batteries. More information is needed.
I would want to know what the voltage is across your engine battery with the vehicle running, and when the situation happens what is the voltage across the battery. Measure from the center of the post to the center of the other post. Dig hard.
If your charging guage is an ammeter, and I suspect it is, you might just have a loose connection on or around the meter. You might have an inline thermal breaker that has gone to the electron gods and needs to be replaced somewhere along the line too.
So I think we need to play 20 questions here to sort it out.
Be patient.
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Truck55
Florida
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Ok it doesn't run them all the way down. But they get low enough that it won't run. All of the batteries are new both the chassis battery and the house batteries. The voltage reg is attached to the alt and it is new. Also the rectifier is new.
Thanks
Dan B
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wolfe10
Texas
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So, do you have a battery isolator between alternator and batteries. It may be a solenoid or diode-based isolator?
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Truck55
Florida
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Pretty sure I have and isolator of some type. Just not sure where it is. If it is faulty could it keep it from charging?
Thanks
Dan B
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Truck55
Florida
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It will start and charge and run great for a few mins. Then it will quit charging and the engine will go dead. It is as if all electicity is cut off to the engine. It will then start right back up and charge and run great for a few mins. again before doing the same thing again. I have always been a shade tree mechanic, just know about enough to get me in trouble. LOL.
There must be something that I am missing.
Thanks
Dan B
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