sunday sos....

[bongomaan]

morning to all,i dont know what is going on with my van but i need help badly,full story,last sunday wouldnt start in morrisons ,jump started went to cardiff all ok started to come home.monday put multi meter on battery 12v with engine running so tuesday got alternator reconditioned (£95).Thursday night 100 amp main fuse blew,Friday back to alternator place alt checked all ok,yesterday not happy starting on the way to macro and lots of rain on the way,just started to come home then when stopped would only start with jump leads,this morning started with jump leads and when started things (i supose relays ) clicking in dashboard and under bonnet,please help becase i am losing the will to live and need to take the family away friday night.....regards neil...

[mikeonb4c]

morning to all,i dont know what is going on with my van but i need help badly,full story,last sunday wouldnt start in morrisons ,jump started went to cardiff all ok started to come home.monday put multi meter on battery 12v with engine running so tuesday got alternator reconditioned (£95).Thursday night 100 amp main fuse blew,Friday back to alternator place alt checked all ok,yesterday not happy starting on the way to macro and lots of rain on the way,just started to come home then when stopped would only start with jump leads,this morning started with jump leads and when started things (i supose relays ) clicking in dashboard and under bonnet,please help becase i am losing the will to live and need to take the family away friday night.....regards neil...

Sorry I can't help you. My only hope is this should be an easy one to diagnose for someone who's good with autoelectrics. Given what has happened since, why was anyone certain the alternator was duff? Also, it takes a lot to blow a 100amp fuse (and I didn't realise you could drive a Bongo once its blown). When you say 'it wouldn't start' do you mean the battery was flat and wouldn't turn the engine over, or that the engine wouldn't fire? The answer to this may give clues. I assume the battery is in good condition?

[g8dhe]

Given that the alternator had failed, its quite possibly that the battery hasn't been properly charging for some time and has also failed. This would make sense of the 100 Amp fuse blowing after the new alternator had been fitted in that the battery was demanding a massive charge from the alternator (probably just after starting ?) and with the engine perhaps being raced was able to supply more than 100 Amps! Since the fuse blew has the battery been given a really good charge with a long run (like an hour or two) or been charged overnight at least with a mains charger ?

My bet with the facts so far would be that the battery is also knackered.

Do you have any odd additions or changes to the vehicle ? I'm thinking of extra DVD's wired directly to the battery or radio's changed to a direct connection and hence draining the battery when the ignition is off ?

[bongomaan]

morning mike,the alternator should have been putting 14(ish)volts into the battery when running,and i replaced the 100 amp fuse,without it there is absolutely nothing (easy to diagnose!) but what made that mother blow i cant guess after refitting alt all was fine,the engine wouldnt start because there was not enough power,i think maybe there is a short somewhere sucking the power back out of the battery, g8dhe i will try another battery and my cd player goes through the ignition circuit although i noticed it doesnt go off when you turn the key but about 30 seconds after...

[mikeonb4c]

g8dhe always strikes me as being good with leccy stuff (unlike me) so hopefully he's on the right track. Careful you don't knacker a good battery with the experiement though in case there is some other underlying problem.

g8dhe - are there any diagnostics he could do to check there isn't some kind of short/duff circuit that could be pulling a lot of power illegally off the battery. For example, if he put a multimeter across the leads that connect to the battery but did it when they are disconnected from the battery, you might expect resistance to be infinite ohms. If it is some lower figure, that might suggest an illegal drain going on. Maybe do this test with the ignition key in different positions to see if/how the resistance changes. I'm not a leccy so could be talking tosh but maybe g8dhe will comment.

[bongomaan]

dont manic mr pannering,job done spare battery fitted and all seems well,i think that with autoelectrics you need a cool head something that mr g8hde has in spades,give me the spanners and oil anyday,right off for a test run look you,and no-1 battery on charge,i been thinking and the radio has been staying on since i fitted my coolant alarm (althogh it is nothing to do with alarm) maybe i disturbed something,do radio/cd"s have a separate earth that is not in the din plug ?,anyway now i can go and put me veg oil in and do some clicks of the kilometer variety,many thanks once again......

[mikeonb4c]

dont manic mr pannering,job done spare battery fitted and all seems well,i think that with autoelectrics you need a cool head something that mr g8hde has in spades,give me the spanners and oil anyday,right off for a test run look you,and no-1 battery on charge,i been thinking and the radio has been staying on since i fitted my coolant alarm (althogh it is nothing to do with alarm) maybe i disturbed something,do radio/cd"s have a separate earth that is not in the din plug ?,anyway now i can go and put me veg oil in and do some clicks of the kilometer variety,many thanks once again......

Thank you Pike. Good luck, and for heavens sake buck up man

[g8dhe]

i been thinking and the radio has been staying on since i fitted my coolant alarm (althogh it is nothing to do with alarm) maybe i disturbed something,do radio/cd"s

Most (all ?) radios, DVD's have two power feeds, an unswitched supply via fuse 1 which keeps the memory running as a minimum,and an ignition switched power feed via fuse 8 from which the audio stages and most of the power is (should ?) taken. However the designs quite often still end up taking a significant 100mA or more from the unswitched supply (which is VERY difficult to justify in design terms !). You could try taking out Fuse 1 and putting a current meter (on 10 amps range to start with) in its place that way you can check what is being drawn by that circuit.
Don't try measuring the current directly from the battery if you are blowing 100Amp fuses - your meter won't last long

[bongomaan]

just had a little run to get some fuel using my old (smallish) battery and it seems fine obviously yesterday i was using a lot of power and the battery hadnt had a chance to fully charge....