Hello Gang,

First, thanks Ron for helping me trouble shoot while on the road.

As some of you know, I aquired Ron's 84 Regal back in August when he decided to go,"High Roller"! My, what a fine Monaco he ended up with. We know our tax dollars are being well spent. Ha ha, Ole' Ron and Donna deserve it.

Now to my latest question which comes after a recent weekend of cold weather boondocking in Cajun country. I like to put a couple hundered miles on Her at least once or twice per month in the winter to keep her limbered up.

The first leg is only 75 miles and uneventful. I stop to top off fuel and then find I don't have enough battery to crank. So, I it the Aux. Battery Start Swich and then finally and barely have enough amps to crank. Thank goodness, my night set up spot is close. When I got parked I checked the motor battery and found it dry.....chranked up again and added distilled water......then let it run awhile. I ran the genset all night because I could and it needed excercise too.

Departing at dawn, I again had to use aux switch to crank. I headed west on the beach highway at an easy pace. Within 4 miles, I heard two small backfires and lost ignition. Luckily, I was next to a big K-Mart parking lot and coasted in using all my strenght to steer. It wouldn't re-start even using auxilary switch. I waited for K-Mart to open and bought the best Delco they sold and installed. Instant temporary fix. Cranked on the first turn and proceeded 60 miles west to my next way station, arrived looking good and set up for two days and nights of boondocking. Cold front came down that day and temps went to the low 20's in south Louisiana. The genset got a good 50 hour workout at this site........it was COLD, outside.

Had a great time visiting old friends and partying, Loisiana style. Monday morning, before daylight, I reasoned the wife had had enough time to cool off so I headed homeward on the last 70 leg.

When I cranked up before daylight and started to pull off, I noticed that my headlights and dash lights seemed rather dim. But, with all the sreetlights, I made it the 4 miles to I-20 and head north at 55 MPH. About 4 more miles up the interstate, the headilights and dash lights went completly out.... then several loud backfires and I'm dead in the water again but have a nice wide shoulder to glide onto. For the next 5 minutes or so I contemplate a shot of vodka to steady my shakes and calmly access the problem here.

To make a long stort, I ended up cranking the genset........ put my battery charger on the the passenger seat (plugged into wall outlet) and ran the battery leads out the window to the new (dead)chassis battery. Guess you could say the getset and battery charger supplied all the needed spark to get me home. The motor ran great. When I got home I noticed than two of the new battery's cells had cooked about half the water out. That's all I know.

Is it bad ALTERNATOR, VOLTAGE REGULATOR, or something strange? Looking back through the years of maintainance records, I found only one incident of backfiring complant and the invoice cited a faulty 12V fuel pump but I can't see that.

I sure would appreciate you master wrench turners helping me dianose this deal. Looks like the Alternator is hard as hell to get to and I haven't a clue as to where the voltage regular is located.

Dixie DoG

ron, is on his way there to fix this for you. Right ron? He is always looking for a REASON to, "HIT THE ROAD AGAIN", PLAY and SING it Dave.. and a 1 2 3

Guess my original plea was too wordy. I'll try again.

1. Backfiring - lose ignition - brand new battery found dead (after 70 miles)with half of battery water evaporated.
2. Accessory and headlights went out just prior to backfiring and ignition shutdown.
3. Was able to limp home using battery charger hooked to new battery, running off genset AC power.

Question; Is my battery getting cooked from too much voltage coming back from alterntor, voltage regulator, isolator?, ect.
OR, is it more likely the battery is being drained because the alternator is not working?
IF I jump off the motor and it is running fine and I then disconnect the battery, shouldn't the motor still be able to run without a battery if the alternator is working properly?

Please Help, confused on question of battery being overcharged or overdrained.

Thanks, Don

It sounds very much like a problem I had -- except I did not loose the battery water. Seems that the post on the starter where the battery cable, ignition and alternator wires all come together had a loose nut. It happened a second time. I guess the post stretched with heat. I'm going to double-nut it this spring before taking off.

I would think you are correct in that it should run with the battery remove, IF THE ALTERNATOR AND RELATED PARTS ARE WORKING PROPERLY. Connections are so VERY important, and so often the GROUND wires are causes. I like to pull terminals and CLEAN, SAND or FILE both external and internal contacts. Just because they appear TIGHT does not mean GOOD flow. I wish you well.

If your batteries are going "DEAD" the Barth will Backfire & sputter and Die.The Barth should run with the Batteries Disconnected,if it doesn't the alternator is bad!Not sure about the Water! Hope this Help!

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Jay&Shelby 95 Barth Regency 34ft. 8.3 Cummins 300 hp.
Spartan K2 MM.

[This message has been edited by bubbiebarth2 (edited January 27, 2005).]

Thanks for the good leads, gentlemen. Sounds like the logical place to start would be to check/rework all terminal connections.
Then, crank her up, disconnect battery and see how far I get.
As you can see, I'm no mechanic and don't know beans about electrical systems. I'm just very pleased that Dave has this forum to help nuts like me, find the right bolts, folks like ya'll, to help keep these wonderful old Barth's road happy.
Many thanks again,
Don

Uhhhh, is that Male-Male cord still plugged into the......oh never mind. I "think" I remember removing that before you took the Barth home with you.

The wrenchs here speak true. Engine should run fine with battery cable lifted. Cannot figure out if the battery is being hit with over voltage to cause it to cook out or if maybe the charging voltage is extremely low. Seems like the latter would not result in boil-off but would result in the gradually dimming and subsequent sputter/cough/coast. I tend to think it's the voltage regulator. Uhhh, there is a belt on the alternator pully, right???

[This message has been edited by ron (edited January 28, 2005).]

Hey Ron,
No, I haven't used the Male-Male cord to date. However, I did use the converter a time or two to watch TV without shore power or genset. As a matter of fact, I used the converter for that purpose on this last trip just before the trouble started. I was watching TV and lost power. When I looked at the converter, the little green "good to go" light and turned to a "no-go" red, so I unplugged the TV and turned the converter off. I just figured the batteries were weak and went back on generator to recharge.
Yep, de alternator do have a good tight belt on it. Again however, as deaf as I am, I tought I heard an intermittent, high pitched humming sound coming from under the doghouse just before last ignition malfunction.
Seriously, do you think that this POS after market converter might possibly be culpable in this scenario?

Don

Don't think so, but you can trip it's feed on the battery pan ot lift the hot side off the battery terminal. It should be connected to the coach batteries anyway so it would not pull from the chassis battery.

I was just messin widdja about the M-M cord.

What has your ignurt red-neck a$$ done to my baby! She was fine until you started abusing her. Gravel roads! She is probably just trying to get even for you taking her down those gravel roads awhile back!

The voltage regulator should be in the "ALTERNATOR"

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Jay&Shelby 95 Barth Regency 34ft. 8.3 Cummins 300 hp.
Spartan K2 MM.

quote:

Originally posted by bubbiebarth2:
The voltage regulator should be in the "ALTERNATOR"

Hmmmm, that'd be something new to me. I remember the regulator being a stand-alone black box mounted on the firewall. Heck, I also remember when cars had crome bumbers and fender skirts too!

quote:

Originally posted by bubbiebarth2:
The voltage regulator should be in the "ALTERNATOR"

That my story and I'm sticking to it!



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Jay&Shelby 95 Barth Regency 34ft. 8.3 Cummins 300 hp.
Spartan K2 MM.

You younguns are all too hard headed nowadays!

You and me both Ron. I run around in a 68 Land Rover and a few years ago changed over the old 24 amp Lucas GENERATOR to a 60 amp Gm 2si Alternator. The old setup had a big black box shunt type reg. mounted on the fire wall. With the old setup the lights would dim when you pulled up to a stop and went to idle!
Don
>

quote:

Originally posted by ron:
Hmmmm, that'd be something new to me. I remember the regulator being a stand-alone black box mounted on the firewall. Heck, I also remember when cars had crome bumbers and fender skirts too!