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1988 Dolphin coach electrical issue (where does this brown wire go?!)


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 I've had issues with my coach electrical ( lights, furnace fan, etc). 

They all work if the vehicle is on, (and interestingly stay on if the vehicle stalls out), but won't work otherwise.

Coach battery gets good charge from alternator, tested by a multimeter. 

from research this seems like a battery disconnect switch issue. 

I started doing some digging and found a disconnected wire underneath the dash, by the steering column. It's labeled 12v access switch. The connected side goes through a fuse and then through the firewall. Where does the other side go?  

 

Thanks for your time!!

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picture would help. It sounds like the brown wire is probably a ground wire. Hard to tell by your description.

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I think that I see at least 2 fuse holders added to your system.  Due to the system being modified by previous owners all bets are off for someone to determine where that wire goes with actually seeing it.  The wire that you are holding has a flat piece of metal attached to it that looks like it could be a part of a fuse holder.

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Is there a switch or some system (that I've seen other units have) that would go between "store" and "use" mode for the coach system?  My symptoms at this time I think match with me being in a "store" mode. 

There are two 4 amp fuses that are in these fuse holders. Hard to tell what is stock and what is aftermarket.  It would be great if someone else had an 88 and could see if they have a similar wire under Te dash. 

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Well that is unfortunate. I will continue to do some troubleshooting and if I come up with any relevant information I'll post it. 

 

Thanks!

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Boz, one thing that will make this job a lot easier is to make up a looong (10-12') jumper wire with alligator clips on each end.  then with an ohmmeter, you can confirm if the two wire ends you're seeing are connected to each other.

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So I feel like an idiot, but turns out coach battery is dead. It gets a charge from alternator (tested by multimeter), but doesn't seem to hold it. I'm putting it on a trickle charger now to try and get it back up and see what happens. Some confusing info had me on a goose chase. 

 

I put the truck battery in its place and all lights and furnace functioned as intended. If the battery is bunk it'll be a good time for me to do my 2x6v battery conversion. 

 

There was a concern brought to my attention that if my solar charge controller is old, the diode in it could be failed, and I could have a voltage loss to that. I'm trying to isolate the wires coming off the coach battery terminals to figure out what goes where and what may be added aftermarket, but it's definitely a rats nest. 

For now I'm going to let the battery charge and see if it can hold a charge  

 

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the backflow issue will only be an issue after dark.  at any rate, you can just disconnect the solar charging temporarily to take that variable out of the equation.

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