BAC Forum
General Boards => General Discussion => Topic started by: John Padmore on April 29, 2013, 06:28:12 PM
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Started the battery replacement task today. First, the battery tray will not move. Made a schematic of the wiring (I am electrically challenged) and took out the battreries. I have 2 group 31 for chassis and 2 group 31 for house. I know this is probably not correct, so I am looking for information on how this should be set up. My guess is 2 group 31 for chassis and 4 6V golf cart for house.
Also, got the battery tray to finally move but it is in terrible shape with many missing metal pieces. Basically falling apart. Any idea where to get a new one, and how can you get it all the way out to replace? Thanks.....
John
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John,
If your tray is similar to mine, you'll have to pull the complete tray assy out. The slide will not separate from the fixed framework. It isn't too bad a job. Take it to a welding shop and they should be able to repair it.
Steve
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John,
You are right about the needed batteries for each bank. The 6V golf cart batteries will need to be wired in series in two pairs to produce two 12V batteries that are installed in parallel to produce 12V to the coach.
Gerald
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See Adam Hicklin's recent thread, "Battery expertise", under this Forum's Technical Support section for ideas on how to set up your new batteries.
Joel
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The battery tray I have on my coach is welded in tight. However I found out the end of the slide rails have bent over ends which act as stops. I pried them open and the tray came out. Now I need to find a metal fabricator....thanks.
John
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John,
Metal stock used is very common so most welding shops should be able to repair your tray.
Steve
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Whether the old one is sandblasted or you have a new one made, may I suggest you apply coats of black POR-15 paint. It is a super tough coating that I've found quite resistant to damage and rust through. I used it when I refurbished the badly rusted and acid-eaten battery tray on our old Pace Arrow, and no hint of corrosion ever appeared there again.
You can get everything you need, including pre-treatment products and instructions, at www.por15.com, or via the BAC's portal to Amazon.
Joel
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Go to the main BAC website (not this Forum) and you'll find a link to Amazon on the right side of the page.
http://beaveramb.org/
Joel
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Thank you....I'll do that 8).
John
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POR-15 reacts with existing rust to work best, so you may be able to save the old tray by simply cleaning it of dirt and loose rust, then using the pretreatment products as directed. Everything you may need should be in the $21 kit on the POR-15 website. I didn't look, so I don't know if the kit is on Amazon.
Joel
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Just about any cabinet shop can get drawer slide hardware in several grades and features. We got full out heavy duty that is only limited by the cables.
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Hi guys: anyone know how long you can leave he batteries out of the coach,I.e uncoupled from ant power before the parasitic draw items(transmission memory,etc) begin to lose their memories - or is it a moot point. I would like to remove my batteries ,clean and repaint the tray but am afraid to disconnect the batteries for any appreciable time. Need I be concerned? Thanks.
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Neil,
There is nothing to be concerned about when disconnecting your batteries for any length of time that is necessary to repair your battery tray.
Gerald
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Well, I had a new battery tray fabricated and painted it with rubberized undercoating. In my haste to reinstall I didn't take a picture. Had the 2 chassis batteries tested and they were good. Purchased 4 new 6volt batteries and installed them. The tray slides great now. For some reason I can't upload a file. This is the error message I get: The file you have tried to upload is either too big, invalid, or exceeds the maximum size of a multiple-attachment message. Thanks.....
John
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John,
You probably need to resize the photos so max size is =>1 Mbit. For instructions on how to do this, go to the General Discussion Board and select the PC or Mac "Sticky" for the procedure to resize and post photos on the forum.
Steve
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Steve's right, John. I see your last photo posted here was over 820kb all by itself, nearly at the 1000kb (1mb) limit. You were lucky it made it in. Get your photo size down to no more than a couple hundred kilobytes at most, using the document as per Steve's reference.
Joel
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A few years ago I installed 6 Lifeline 'tall' 6s [900 amphrs] plus the starting batts all of which are AGMs. I removed the tray assembly entirely, sat them all of treated plywood, secured them with 'L'-brackets and as I don't have to water them nothing needs to be pulled in and out.
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I discussed the ECM power issue with Cat engineering at length and they did some research for us into the ECM design. Keith and his in-law are right, the ECM can be left without power without any issues. The small downside is that the ECM has to rewrite the information that was stored into memory when it was powered down, essentially reprogram the information that it had in order to come back up. There is a delay when "cold starting" the ECM vs leaving it powered up. It is under 20 seconds to write the info into memory and the ECM will be ready before we are ready to start up.
Beaver wired the coaches to maintain ECM power and it has never been clear why they did that.
Later Ed