another leisure battery problem

[mowermedic]

Hello all, I recently bought my first T25 which is a camper conversion and appears to be a profesional job. However, there is no leisure battery fitted.
Does anyone know where the cables are are fed from for the fridge and the lights? I have found 2, 2 core cables which disappear down the side of the offside door post but can't find them after that. Any help would be great as the next step will be to start removing the inside

[ghost123uk]

Hi, I see this is your first post.
Firstly, welcome to club 80-90 where you can learn all you need to know, and lots that you don't need to know

Now to your question. If it was a professionally made camper conversion, it would have had a leisure battery fitted (usually under one of the seats). Shame you don't know what conversion it is as that might help. However, most of these vans, being around 30 years old, will have had lots of wiring changes done over the years, so I wouldn't expect to be able to simply state "the wires from the fridge come out behind the xyz panel and are red and brown. They should be connected to terminals 15 and 85 of relay 1 which is under the passenger seat in the rear left corner" I am afraid that is unlikely to happen. You are going to have to learn a bit about understanding 12V vehicle electrics. Does yours have a simple split charge relay or one of those fancy "Zig" panels?

To start you off, have a look in our "wiki2 here -> https://club8090.co.uk/wiki/Main_Page" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. There is a lot of info on leisure wiring in there.

[mowermedic]

Hi, thanks for the reply. I have a good understanding of vehicle electrics as this is a big part of my job, canbus systems can cause some headaches but normally we manage. The problem is there was no leisure battery fitted so the feed for the fridge and lights must come from the starting battery. I have followed them back to the door post behind the drivers seat where they disappear down hill never to be seen again. I posted on the off chance someone may be able to shed some light on the subject as the next step would be to start removing the floor which I don't fancy as I want to use it this weekend.
I may just terminate the wires at this point and take some new feeds from the leisure battery I've just fitted

[CJH]

Have you checked what connections you have at and around the starter battery (is yours a petrol van with the starter battery behind the driver's seat?)? The fridge will probably be powered from a relay so that it only runs from 12V when the engine's running. That and the lights may well have a separate fuse box which may well be located in the space under the driver's seat. It might be worth having a look under the van for signs of the wires you've already traced - the factory connections to the starter battery come in through grommets in the base of the battery box, and it's quite easy to push additional wires through the same holes.

[mowermedic]

Hi, thanks for your input. It is a petrol with the battery behind the seat but the battery has two wires connected. one for the feed to the fuse box and one that runs through a relay (under the drivers seat) and then is spliced into a really thin wire behind the fuse box, not sure what that does but it is not big enough to power a fridge.
I think i will just run new ones and worry about it later, I have plenty of room under the passenger seat for an auxilary fuse box infront of the new leisure battery and the system will then be correct and safe

[Smosh]

..

[mike9009]

Not all professional campers had a leisure battery installed.

My 1981 AutoHomes camper had a leisure battery as an option - which mine does not have. I don't often use the van without electric hook up, so I have simply bought a main battery with a higher capacity to cope if we have the radio on whilst out for the day.

Would a 12V battery power a fridge for a long length of time anyway??

Mike

[bigherb]

It depends on what conversion it is and what year it is. Earlier Autohomes just had two twin core cables going up the A post and down the B post coming out of hole at the bottom behind the drivers seat (RHD) and then behind the cabinets. One twin core was connect to a permanent live feed on the fusebox for the lights/etc, the other connected to an ignition controlled feed for the fridge, Autosleepers similar but sometimes used a relay for the ignition feed.

[mowermedic]

Thanks Bigherb for the info, that is exactly how mine is wired (minus the relay) got it all switched over to the leisure battery now and just had three days at Santa Pod so it's all tested and working well. Thanks again to all who replied, we got there in the end