New Beaver Owner - Hot Water, Generator and Jacks issues - All Resolved Now.

[Steve Huber Co-Admin]

Tim,
If your coach is a mid 90s vintage, I suspect it has a Gillig chassis. This doc will help with the electrical portion.
Steve
https://www.dropbox.com/s/us15putll0k09xg/Beaver%20Service%20Manual%20%28Electrical%20Diagrams%29.pdf?dl=0

[Tim Schafer]

The books that came with it and a VIN lookup say it's a Magnum chassis.  Not sure how similar that is to what you sent, but some of the diagrams resemble some of the stuff on my coach, so hopefully it will be helpful.

We are headed back out to the campground in a couple hours.  I'll do some voltage testing on and off shore power and with and without the key in the accessory position and see what it shows.

On my older motorhome the chassis battery was starting to wear out and not hold a charge very well, so I hooked a pair of jumper cables between the two batteries (it only has 2, 1 chassis and 1 coach).  This would then get the charger and the coach battery to keep the chassis battery charged up and allow me to start it.  My boost button doesn't work, so this was my work around.  Do you think it would be safe to do something like this on the Beaver? or is that more likely to cause issues.

Thanks,

Tim Schafer

[Harold and Gloria Skipworth]

Not sure if this will help but after receiving service at a cat dealer which took over a week due to issues with Good Sam insurance coverage I got the coach back with heavily depleted batteries as it wasn't plugged in.  The coach died on the road and the company that came out pronounced my alternator as dead.  When that didn't cure the problem they said my batteries were shot.  This did get me going but did not cure the beast.  I later studied the chassis wiring diagram and saw a fuse depicted in the main disconnect box, it had blown.  Using the alternator as a charger instead of the generator was my downfall also having a 125 amp fuse on a 150 amp alternator which supposed to be 200 amp. New fuse and problem solved.  don't know if Beaver used the same approach in 1998 but look for a fuse.

Harold

[Steve Huber Co-Admin]

Tim,
You should be able to attach an external charger to the chassis batteries and see if they'll charge. Jumpering and starting the coach may damage the alternator if you can't get the generator running. The batteries can be charged in parallel or individually. If individually, disconnect the load and separate the batteries.
Steve

[Tim Schafer]

Would jumpering work just to charge?  I just want to charge then up and see if the dash will light in accessory position. That will tell me if I have a bad wire or not.

[Steve Huber Co-Admin]

As far as I know it will. Just be sure you have the jumper cables connected to the output terminals of the house batteries to be sure you have 12V.
Steve

[Tim Schafer]

I will use my volt meter to check voltages. Do I need to hook both positive and negative? I thought I read somewhere that they share the same ground.

[Edward Buker]

Tim,

They share the same ground so you only need to use one cable. The item folks have brought up about the alternator is usually an issue when the larger capacity depleted house bank is trying to be charged by the engine alternator after heavy use. The starting bank is usually down some also, so that is a very severe load for the alternator and they tend to fail. If your house bank is fully charged the alternator should be able to handle starting battery bank charging as long as you do not have any shorted cells pulling them down.

As Steve mentioned, very important to verify that you are using a 12V point to ground on the house bank and not a 6V point before you parallel the banks for charging the chassis batteries.

Regarding the emergency start solenoid that parallels the banks, depending on the coach wiring you may not be able to activate that if the solenoid switch is wired to use the chassis battery as a power source and they are discharged. Sometimes they are wired that way.

Later Ed

[Tim Schafer]

Well, we got a new Beauty Rest mattress for it yesterday, the old one was the wrong size and pretty scurvy looking, so we opted for a very soft queen size mattress and slept like babies last night   It's a full size queen, but only about 3 inches overhang the end the of the bed, kinda glad I didn't spend the extra to buy a custom size one.

Woke up to 1.5 inches of brown water in the bottom of my shower, which freaked me out thinking it was black tank backup, but luckily it ended up being gray tank water.  We went and dumped first thing this morning, apparently the vent on the roof must be open to the elements because it rained last night.

One more thing to get fixed.

Anyways, I finally got my voltage meter working last night and went out early this morning, found which terminal was 12v on the house battery, hooked up the jumper cable between it and the positive terminal on the chassis batteries, went inside and the invertor showed it was pushing 40a charge.  Waited until it was down to the 10a light and went out and checked, 12.8v after removing the jumper cable. 

Went inside, put the key in and turned to run, nada, no dash lights, no low air squeal, nothing.  Generator wouldn't crank.  Started the generator off the house batteries and let go of the boost button, and it immediately turned off.  So I'm pretty sure I've got a bad wire somewhere, probably a ground.

Hoping when I find and fix it, it may resolve the chassis battery charging issue as well.

I have it parked at a friends office parking lot for the night, will check in the morning and see what the voltage is at on the chassis batteries then.

Still haven't had any luck finding the valve for the hot water yet.  Invited all my friends over who have had or currently own a camper, and none of them can find it either, so I don't feel too stupid.  Going to take it to the local RV dealer and see if one of their techs can point it out to me.

I talked to the company who winterized it the year it was seized and he had no recollection of doing it, and apparently is a one man operation and a very crotchety old fellow.   Sounded like he had no interest on working on any motorhomes, he only wants to deal with trailers.

[Steve Huber Co-Admin]

Tim,
Only hot water valve I can think of is at your water bay. You may have a blockage at the aqua hot.
Steve

[Joel Ashley]

Yes, it does sound like you need to find a poorly fastened or badly corroded large ground connection somewhere, Tim.  Battery posts are easy enough to check, then follow the negative cables to the chassis bolts.  Also the leads to the starter solenoid.   

I don't know how much your '97 is like my '06 and most others here, but I'd put some suspicion on the Ford-type solenoid in the 12v. electrical bay (the bay commonly foremost street-side, in front of the tire), if yours is built that way and I'd guess that it is.  That bugger powers through a lot of relays and circuit breakers above it on a panel, and its points can burn up;  it's a common failure point, so check for voltage on at least the post with the largest red cable.

Some of the circuits power directly off the hot side of the solenoid and if the battery chassis grounds and all are good, they should be working components.  But the circuits on the downflow side of the solenoid will only work if that solenoid functions properly - and on mine the engine ECM, instrument panel, ignition relays and others all rely on that downstream power off that solenoid, even though my basic ignition itself does not because it feeds off the solenoid's large hot post, so it can activate the solenoid in the first place.

If you have 12v at the left post, then the battery connections are likely okay.  But if you turn on the ignition and don't get voltage on the solenoid's right post, then get a new solenoid.  There's also an electronic alternative available, that won't burn up, but I guess it's spendy, so many here just carry spare solenoids onboard.

Joel

[Mike Groves]

I've only encountered one situation where I turned the key in the ignition and nothing happened, and that was after messing around with the remote start in the rear service bay.  I have no idea whether this coach under discussion has one, but if so you might look at it.  My solution was to "reset" the system by cutting off the chassis batteries using the switch which disconnects them.  If that's not something you have then you could simply pull the ground temporarily to switch it off.  Just an idea.

Mike

[Tim Schafer]

Mine does have the front/off/rear switch in the engine control compartment, we have tried flipping that switch, but have not tried disconnecting the ground.
I will check the whole left side of the 12v connectors in the front compartment, there is a solenoid at the bottom, I will check voltage there as well.  That just has the hot side of the 12v tho and not a ground, correct?

If those all test correct, I will disconnect the ground from the chassis batteries for a little while and see if that resets anything.

I won't probably get back to it til tomorrow late afternoon, but i will post my results.

Thanks again for all of your inputs!

Tim

[Edward Buker]

Tim,

I doubt that your issue is a ground issue. Be sure the battery connections are tight and corrosion free as a prerequisite. The item you mentioned, the solenoid at the bottom of the copper busses in the electrical bay is activated by the key switch. Measure if you have 12v to ground on the left copper buss. If so the connections at the battery for the chassis set are fine. If not you probably have a main fuse in the rear battery bay that is open or a battery switch you have not found yet.

Once you have 12V on the left buss measure the right buss to ground with the key on, that should toggle to 12V vs zero volts with the key switch off. If it does not, check the small wires on the solenoid, see if 12V there toggles on and off with the key. If it does the solenoid is bad. If not check back at the key switch and see if 12V is present and if the key toggles that 12V on and off on the ignition wire. If not it is the key switch or the rear start switching could possibly be disabling getting voltage to the switch but I think that is less likely. In this case you need to trace where the ignition switch 12V is sourced and why you do not have it at the switch.

Later Ed

[Orman Claxton]

Tim
Some of the older coaches have been know to plug up with sediment,
one way to check is hook up water direct to the hot water line
Hope this helps