dead battery

[mwheatley]

Hi All,

I just wanted to get something straight in my head........

I have just been away for the weekend in North Wales. The van didn't move for 2 days, but the Eber diesel heater was used a lot. When coming to move off on the Monday the van wouldn't start.....dead as a Dodo!! A few jump leads later & all was fine, a long ish trip back to Stafford would re charge the battery....I thought! Went to start her today & dead again!! This is the first time this has ever happened, she normally starts so well.

What I need to know is:

I thought the heater worked from the leisure battery & the main battery worked the lights & starting? We hardly used the interior lights.

When the heater first starts the battery light on the kitchen panel goes right down to red but then back to orange when the glow plug has done it's work..............is this indicator light not for the leisure battery?

Why would my main battery die??

Any thoughts would be lovely.

Matt

[Mocki]

ummm, interesting one........

1.are you sure the ebber is on the leisure battery.The ebber should stop operating if it gets a less than 11v reading at the heater, so even if it is on the main battery you should still be able to start
2. driving from wales to stafford wouldnt be enough to fully charge a dead battery.... howevewr it should be enough to re start it the next day

i think you either have a leak, or a battery that is duff....

Take the battery off and fully recharge it on a mains charger,check voltage then let it stand for 24hrs and check voltage again, if its dropped more than a volt from the first reading it is on its way out

[mwheatley]

Thanks Steve,

I am not 100% sure that the heater is off the leisure battery, but as far as I'm aware she is an original 1990 LHD Westy with no changes from new. I'm sure I read somewhere that the heater ran off the leisure battery on these I might be wrong.....usually are!

But, as you say it should cut out anyway no?

I will try the battery re-charge & see what happens.

Matt

[Mocki]

im not sure, i dont "do" westys, but its a easy check, while you have the battery disconnected to charge it, see if the ebber powers up.......if it does, its on the leisure

[mwheatley]

It's so simple to everyone else

Will give it a go.......thanks.

[johnnyvespa]

if you put 2 asprin in battery it will giveit a quick charge so you can start it.so the man from the AA in the
sun paper said . give it a go hope it works mem 6131

[lloyd]

if you put 2 asprin in battery it will giveit a quick charge so you can start it.so the man from the AA in the
sun paper said . give it a go hope it works mem 6131

I read about this before. Even researched it and found as many saying it did as saying it didn't.
Have never tried it, but I doubt it will work.

[horizontal kipper]

make sure you put the caps back on quick, i did the asprin thing stood nattering and it had fizzed out all over the place.

[matt-the-sign]

My 1990 1.6TD Westy (unmolested) has the Eber running off the auxilary battery under the drivers seat as standard.

The problem I had was that the Eber would not start if the aux battery was just a little bit down on power.

There is a really well written piece in the Wiki which explains why but the end result was I fitted a further Aux battery under the rear seat in parallel to the existing Aux battery and the problem is solved.

I realise this doesn't actually answer your question but thought it may come in useful at some point

[08Kev]

Was your leisure battery also flat?, if so then what might have happened is that the isolation switch is faulty, so this would drain your leisure battery then it would start to drain the van battery also, If you want to test for leakage, Make sure everything is switched off, disconnect the negative terminal from your battery, attach a 12volt test light between the negative terminals and then earth it to the van, if the light lights up then you have leakage.......good luck!!