I’m on a year long trip around the country making a documentarish and visiting all of the 50 states. Something between a blog and a documentary. I am driving a 2001 Ford Econoline E150 v6–white.
A couple days ago, my radiator blew up in the mountains of Utah. That has been fixed.
But today, I was driving through Nevada and I noticed the battery gauge was all the way down. I thought there was a short or something, so I disconnected my power inverter wiring at the car battery and continued on my way. A little while down the road I noticed the rest of my gauges stopped working, and then the windshield wipers, turn signals and finally the radio. It was about that time that the car shifted itself into neutral and shut off and I coasted to a stop along I-80. The problems seemed to start when the rain started, but I’m leaning towards coincidence on that one. At first, when I turned the key nothing happened–no lights, nothing. But after waiting a few minutes I was able to turn the key and get lights/gauges on but the gauges would bounch a little and the lights would dim.
Another post on here mentioned that a dead battery could cause something like this to happen. The shop I took it to here in NV is pretty shady and I am looking for more info so I don’t walk in blind. The owner already tried to pull a fast one on me. I want to make sure that it’s not a short or something else bad.
And my question about wiring… I have a battery bank of six 12v marine batteries that are hooked up to a solar panel. The solar panel does a pretty good job, but would it be possible to just hook up the battery bank to my car battery so that it gets charged by the alternator? I’ve hesitated because I’m not sure it’s that simple. If not, any other suggestions for charging the battery bank off the alternator while I drive and not burning it out?
It sounds like the alternator isn’t working as it should be so have that checked out.
You can hookup the battery bank like you stated but that is a lot of load for the alternator to handle if they have a low charge on them.
Your alternator is shot. And, by running the battery down, the battery may be shot as well. Most common car batteries do not like running down that far, and it will shorten the remaining life of the battery.
For future reference, if the battery gauge drops while you are driving, find a shop immediately. The battery gauge actually is the alternator output gauge, and your alternator died first. By continuing to drive, the battery was trying it’s best to keep everything powered up, but it only has so much charge, and finally ran out of power. That’s what stalled the van. Next time, find help while the battery is still giving you time.
If you are serious about charging the battery bank with the alternator, you may want to install a higher amperage alternator – maybe now since you are apparently going to replace your alternator before you leave town. On the other hand, it’s not especially likely that any town in Nevada other than Reno or Las Vegas will have a compatible, high amperage alternator sitting around in stock. Your decision may depend on how well you like the town where you have made your emergency landing.
Ask me sometime about the limited number of things to do in Tonopah while you are waiting for the twice weekly Greyhound to bring up a part not stocked locally from San Diego.
Since you are going to do a lot of highway driving, you may have enough excess capacity with the stock alternator to make charging the battery bank feasible. But you may want to look into devices that will limit the load on the alternator to it’s maximum current rating. I imagine such things exist and can sort of visualize a circuit, but I have no experience with them. Maybe an RV or boating oriented forum …
Thanks for the quick replies! Follow up question… since I have all those other batteries, think it would be possible to hook them up to my car battery, and be able to drive 160miles to Reno and find a more reputable shop?
The battery just needs a charge for my car to function right? It doesn’t matter if the alternator does it or it is by some other means?
For future reference, if the battery gauge drops while you are driving, find a shop immediately. The battery gauge actually is the alternator output gauge, and your alternator died first.
I’ve never had an alternator die while I was driving so I thought it was some kind of short or something. I was in the middle of no where (and still am) so I think even if I started to find a shop, I wouldn’t have made it anyway. But definitely good to know. Thanks for the reponse.
That makes sense about the alternator.
I’m thinking about somehow making it to Reno to get a high capacity alternator installed now, cuz I’m sure this shady guy will try to rip me off more than he is already going to try. Thanks for the response!
Ask me sometime about the limited number of things to do in Tonopah while you are waiting for the twice weekly Greyhound to bring up a part not stocked locally from San Diego.
I’ll ask you now ;] I’m actually headed to California for a couple weeks while I get everything together and try to finish the rest of the 40 states. I’d be interested in any CA input or stories for sure!
I imagine such things exist and can sort of visualize a circuit,
It sounds like you know enough to cringe at what I had setup before… lol. Right now, what finally did the alternator in was a 325w power inverter that plugged into the cig. lighter. Before though… I had a higher amp/watt inverter that powered a multi level battery charger, that I then hooked up straight to the battery bank. That inverter eventually caught fire, but it worked rather well up until then.
If you can swap in one of the batteries to replace the drained one that may be the best thing to do. You can use the seperate 12 volt supply to run the car. 12 volts DC is 12 volts DC. You will need to have some pretty heavy wires to support the starter operation.
As far as the alternator goes it should be checked out on the bench. There are other things that can cause a good alternator to not work and if that is the case a new alternator wouldn’t make any difference.
It sounds like your alternator is bad. If you have a voltmeter, you can do a quick check by starting the van and hooking the meter to the battery terminals. You should have at least 13 volts with the engine running and lights, fan, etc. turned on. You may now need a battery as well, as car batteries (except marine deep-cycle batteries) don’t cope well with being run into the ground. If the battery is fairly new, you might get away with it–once.
If you’re going to try and charge multiple batteries, you should consider getting a higher capacity alternator (like borderhopping said), and also a battery isolator. This will prevent too much load on your car’s electrical system as well as keeping you from running down the battery needed to run the vehicle if you’re using the others for power while parked. I’m sure that RV dealers and decent parts stores have exactly what you need.
I might add that most auto part store will check the battery and charging system for free, and most of them do an good and honest test.What’s the matter with your solar panel? It doesn’t work at night?
It’s possible to recharge 12 batteries from one bus; BUT, there are more electric safeguards needed than you can provide. Recharging one battery at a time is doable. RVs have such setups. So, charge one, change one, charge one, change one…up to 13.
Your 325 watt inverter (zero loses) requires 27 amps at 12 volts. That would not kill a healthy alternator.
How does that gingle go, “See the U…S…A… in your Chev…ro…let, etc.”?
Once I told the mechanic that I just wanted him to replace the alternator he stopped trying to rip me off and quoted me a fair price. So I didn’t need to attempt this.
If you’re going to try and charge multiple batteries, you should consider getting a higher capacity alternator
The replacement alternator is rated at 130A. Do you think that’d be enough? I don’t know what is normal for regular/high cap. alternators. The problem with RV stores is they mark up everything 1000%. It’s crazy.
Thanks for the tip… that is a seriously good bit of info to know.
Solar doesn’t work that well during the day… lol.
So, charge one, change one, charge one, change one…up to 13.
I’m not sure I understand what you mean. Do you mean swap out one of the batteries in need of recharging for my car battery and let it recharge that way?
Your 325 watt inverter (zero loses) requires 27 amps at 12 volts
I had a 750watt inverter hooked up previously but it caught on fire… I suspect that is what did me in. It had a 75A fuse in it though…
I needed a new alternator and battery and I’ve also been needing a new serpentine belt. After I told the guy what I wanted him to do he stopped trying to find ways to screw me and even replaced the belt at cost.
Thanks to everyone for their help!
As for charging your batteries with the van alternator, I am relatively certain that you can get a bigger alternator into that van easily. They do put V8s in them don?t they? It might take someone with experience or creativity. I think that 200 amps would be doable with an aftermarket or maybe even with a Ford alternator. The newest police cars have a 200 amp alternator. Some of the bigger vans can be equipped with bigger ones when converted to emergency response service. The devil is in the details and a dealer shop typically does not deal with this kind of problem. Ford changed from separate to PCM voltage regulators in some vehicles ca 2003. I don’t know which and exactly when. You might have to put a pulley on an alternator that is not usually used on that alternator to match your FEAD belt. You will need more robust cables to handle the load and someone has to figure out where they are needed.
You do want this done right. The deep cycle batteries that you have require a different charging voltage than the automotive starting battery under the hood. You might damage them if you don?t hook them up correctly. You want to protect the starting battery from deep discharge to get any life out of it and ensure that you can start the vehicle.
I could figure out how to do this with my van if I had one and a couple of weeks. I think you need an RV, automotive electrical, or conversion van shop to do this.
The 750 watt inverter (63 amps), plus the amps drawn by all the other electric circuits, seriously overloaded the alternator. So, it “retired”.
You must bear in mind that an alternator does not produce its rated amperage output at idle. It produces its rated power at over 1500 engine rpm. That rated output may not be for a maximum constant load; so, el zappo!
The RV dual-battery management will recharge two batteries, simultaneously. How you switch to another battery to recharge is up to your ingenuity----by switches, or whatever.