QuestionHi,
The solenoid is mounted on the front wall of the engine compartment. We have replaced the house battery twice now. Last March, we replaced it and one month later it was completely dead again. I took it to the dealer I bought it from, and they said the solenoid was bad and $193 later, I had a new solenoid. I had to replace the battery as it wouldn't hold a charge. It was ok for a while, but we realized that it was only charging intermittently. Upon investigation, we found that this wire that is connected to the solenoid, was bad. Moving it around would cause the charging to start & stop. (We checked this using a meter.) We just replaced this wire & we now have a good and steady charge of 14.5 volts on both batteries. After the fact, we inspected the old wire. It had been patched with a new piece of wire already, and on that wire was some shrink tubing covering the soldered-in diode. Is there supposed to be an inline isolator, or does the solenoid do that?
The previous owners must have had some major difficulties as we've found a hand drawn schematic, but we're not sure what their specific problem was.
Thank you so much for your help!
Syd
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Followup To
Question -
HI,
We have a 1991 Ford 24' Tioga motorhome. We've been having trouble keeping the house battery charged. While troubleshooting, we found that there was a brittle wire that runs from the solenoid into a harness that runs through the engine. (We are unable to see exactly where this harness ends up) This wire has obviously been replace before. There is a diode, PX1N4001, soldered inline. What function does this serve & does this need to be replaced with the fresh wire?
Thank you,
Syd
Answer -
Which solenoid is the wire attached too? Any time you have a degraded wire you should replace it, the diode will block the input from one direction or the other or filter the input or output, with a schematic it would be hard to tell you what the function is for this application. I would not bypass or remove the diode without knowing why it is there and if it was designed for the application. I have a few questions on What types of trouble you are having with the charge so I can determine where your problems may be.
1. Do you have a convertor/charger-Does it produce voltage
2. Have you checked the fuses
3. Does the house battery charge when plugged in to a power source
4. does the house battery charge when driving
5. Are you having trouble with the vehicle battery also
6. Have you checked the house battery for shorts or dead cells
AnswerI am very glad you found the problem, I dont know if an isolator is needed or not, I still havent found a schematic for it. You might also want to check your charging mode on the convertor and see if it is cutting off at the right time when the battery is full. This will sometimes cause the battery to short over time from over cahrging now that you have it working. Your welcome, I enjoy doing this.
