Emergency Plea for help- leisure battery

[andys]

Hi all, I'm in fort William at the moment, on my way to catch a ferry to uist in 4 hrs and I've just found my leisure battery isn't charging and is already down to 12v! It's a Westfalia set up but I believe they are using the factory setup as the battery is under the driver's seat. I have no meter with me but I've checked the 3 large fuses and 3 small ones under the seat and they're all fine

Anyone have any clue what it could be? I'm going to have to abandon and go home if I can't fix it in a couple of hours

 

[andys]

 

[Pauly]

Going to be hard to check much with no meter/tools ??

 

[andys]

I know, I've got basic tool kit but no meter. I've looked on the fuse box pdfs and it mentions a battery isolation fuse for 2nd battery but I can't even find that fuse box, unless it's under the battery. Thinking about it that probably isn't it because the leisure battery isn't isolated, it's been drained by what I've been using USB the last 2 days

 

[Davenjo]

Is it worth Googling to see if there are any friendly convertors in your local that may be willing to have a quick look for you? These guys are somewhere close by I think - Vanguard Conversions might be worth ringing to explain your predicament and see if they would be willing to have a quick look??

Hope you get it sorted!!

 

[Loz]

There must be a split charge relay under the passenger seat and perhaps the fuse close to that.

 

[andys]

First chance I've had to add to this as I haven't had a data signal. I managed to find a garage who had a look at it who first of all told me that I was wrong, the battery wasn't supposed to be charged when driving and only had a mains hookup and then moved on to telling me my battery was defective and funnily enough could sell me the one I needed. In the end I ran out of time and headed off to get the ferry. I've had to spend my time on uist at sites with hookup and I'm going to try and do alternate nights when I get to Harris/Lewis tomorrow. I've looked under the passenger seat at the relays and found a large 40 amp fuse which was intact. I'm just going to wait till I get home and have a garage and toolkit to find the problem and enjoy the trip in the meantime. Thanks for the suggestions

 

[andys]

Bloody awful holiday in every way, have now come home a week early and hate my van, and campervanning in general, with a passion at the moment. I'm going to force myself to take a month to decide as I need to stop taking snap decisions I sometimes regret, but my feeling at the moment is to get rid of the van and put the money to other uses

 

[DaveyB]

Bloody awful holiday in every way, have now come home a week early and hate my van, and campervanning in general, with a passion at the moment. I'm going to force myself to take a month to decide as I need to stop taking snap decisions I sometimes regret, but my feeling at the moment is to get rid of the van and put the money to other uses

Oh dear, sorry to read that it has gone so badly wrong for you. Like you say, sit back, let the frustration ebb away, then go back to it. It may be something really simple causing the problem.

 

[andys]

Oh dear, sorry to read that it has gone so badly wrong for you. Like you say, sit back, let the frustration ebb away, then go back to it. It may be something really simple causing the problem.

In fact the electrical fault turned out to be the least of the problems. Unbelievably bad weather, overcrowded motorhome filled roads, nowhere to park up for the nights other than campsites as other motorhomers/campers started bagsying all the best places about midday, and being stuck inside the van with soaking clothes hanging everywhere while watching telly on a laptop every night. I wish I'd gone to Spain like my original plan. Can't even be arsed going out and starting on fixing the charging problem at the moment, need some beers and forget about it!

 

[Ed Webb]

It's easy for me to say having not endured what you have but if it helps it's looks like you have a great van that can really take you places. Don't make a big discision on one bad trip. I managed to dabble in a forum meet at busfest this weekend. It was full of likeminded people all chipping in to help each other and forming a great weekend dispite hiccups and wet weather. Good times are out there. Treat it as a learning curve...
Sit back, have a few beers And think happy thoughts

 

[PukkaT6]

Chin up mate, shit weather is pain in the backside but when its good its a totally different experience. Sometimes a laptop beer and a good laugh about the situation is the only way.

 

[PukkaT6]

Me and the Mrs had none stop rain the last night and whilst we ended up with some wet things in back of van that we left out we just laughed at all the people putting tents away in the p'ing down rain and tbh they were laughing with us.

 

[andys]

Chin up mate, shit weather is pain in the backside but when its good its a totally different experience. Sometimes a laptop beer and a good laugh about the situation is the only way.

I've had some great van trips round Europe over the past few years that I've really enjoyed and that's where I should have gone this year. But I didn't and it's not just what went wrong on this trip, there have been several other things that have forced me to think about what I want to do and that maybe I've come to the end of my van journey. But like I say, I'll give it a month from today and take the decision at that point.

 

[PukkaT6]

Fair play mate - we deffo need to do a group meet so we can get smashed, steal each others monkeys and admire my wrap ha oh a share stories of epic camping fails.

 

[andys]

Been out to try and fix this and I'm stumped at the first hurdle. The fusebox layout diagram shows an engine fusebox (6 in the diagram below) which contains a fuse to isolate power to a relay feeding the second battery, which seems like a logical place to start.

The problem is I can't find this fusebox at all! I can find the one marked 7 easy enough but this doesn't contain the fuses I'm looking for. I've taken the battery out (which surely shouldn't be necessary to change a fuse!) but all I can see is as the pic below



Has it been moved somewhere else since this was printed, or do I have to remove even more stuff to get to it? Be grateful for any pointers

 

[Loz]

Keep going, its under the battery tray and it is the 100A fuse 1 you are looking for I think, but why go there if the other end of the feed cable (under passenger seat) is already live?

 

[andys]

Keep going, its under the battery tray and it is the 100A fuse 1 you are looking for I think, but why go there if the other end of the feed cable (under passenger seat) is already live?

Oops, schoolboy error, I haven't checked if it is Ok thanks I'll put the battery back and test the feeds under the passenger seat

 

[andys]

Fruitless afternoon so far. I put the battery back in temporarily and found I could get a reading of 12v on one of the thick red terminals under the passenger seat so put the battery back in properly and pulled the passenger seat out. I'm working on the theory that I've caused some issue when I disturbed the electrics here while fitting the safe. This is what's there, I've pulled all the relays etc out for easier viewing. The large relay in the middle (with the Mercedes logo ) is what I'm guessing is feeding the battery as it's got the thickest cables. It reads 12v on the top terminal and between 11.7v and 12.4v on the bottom one, depending on engine speed.


This is what it looks like under the driver's seat, I haven't removed the seat or disturbed the wiring as it's easy enough to get to everything


No there isn't a fuse missing, it was never there and there are no contacts for it on the reverse.

I've checked every single fuse and they're all fine so I'm stumped

 

[Loz]

Okay, so what you need to check is that the Relay with the mercedes logo on it operates when the engine is running..