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Ladies and Gentlemen,
I would like to thank two members upon whom I intruded this afternoon...
You know how it goes, the truck is having a long spell of doing what it says on the tin... so you don't bother tinkering, you just drive it... After all thats what you bought it for...
Then bang, out of the blue something goes wrong... and immediately you think about all the jobs you should have done and never got round to.
For me it was starter motor brushes... starting has its moments intermittantly... but nothing major... till this afternoon... nothing, not a sausage... solenoid clicked (and pulled strong) so it must be the starter motor... right?
wrong...
I have a split charge system... it always works, never have to mess with it, it does what is says on the tin. (IBS DBi)
Has a manually connect both batteries switch... (forgotten it could do that! - this is important)
So... TonyN and Jotto take time out of their busy schedules to speak to this blithering twit on the phone this afternoon... general consensus is to beat up the starter motor some... and coax it into starting... so after half an hour of bashing and poking... nothigng, so call the RAC... and he duly turns up...
Describe the mods... that took a while... and talk through the electrics in some detail. Show the guy that I can manually connect the two batteries... and pow it starts... (plenty of swearing silently to myself... both kids in the car) plenty humiliated enough in front of the RAC guy...
So the guy gets all his meters out... and we start checking everything... from the alternator to the starter motor... each section of cable is measured to see if there is any drops along their length... and end result is some very interesting numbers...
Aux battery is toast... (Exide Maximma) Optima Red Top is not best pleased... (but perhaps not toast yet)
Had a second Exide at home, for a future mod... (that mod is now out of the window...) so just finished swapping the battery out and taking my toy for a run to charge them up... Hopefully, with a good aux, the starter battery should balance out nicely, be under a lot less stress and should start in the morning... everything crossed.
Note to self... get a laser thermometer to measure the temps of the batteries... also one of those very snazzy meters that will measure the current flowing down a cable... and a decent portable battery tester... Don't want to get bitten by that one again... extremely embarassing...
I would like to thank two members upon whom I intruded this afternoon...
You know how it goes, the truck is having a long spell of doing what it says on the tin... so you don't bother tinkering, you just drive it... After all thats what you bought it for...
Then bang, out of the blue something goes wrong... and immediately you think about all the jobs you should have done and never got round to.
For me it was starter motor brushes... starting has its moments intermittantly... but nothing major... till this afternoon... nothing, not a sausage... solenoid clicked (and pulled strong) so it must be the starter motor... right?
wrong...
I have a split charge system... it always works, never have to mess with it, it does what is says on the tin. (IBS DBi)
Has a manually connect both batteries switch... (forgotten it could do that! - this is important)
So... TonyN and Jotto take time out of their busy schedules to speak to this blithering twit on the phone this afternoon... general consensus is to beat up the starter motor some... and coax it into starting... so after half an hour of bashing and poking... nothigng, so call the RAC... and he duly turns up...
Describe the mods... that took a while... and talk through the electrics in some detail. Show the guy that I can manually connect the two batteries... and pow it starts... (plenty of swearing silently to myself... both kids in the car) plenty humiliated enough in front of the RAC guy...
So the guy gets all his meters out... and we start checking everything... from the alternator to the starter motor... each section of cable is measured to see if there is any drops along their length... and end result is some very interesting numbers...
Aux battery is toast... (Exide Maximma) Optima Red Top is not best pleased... (but perhaps not toast yet)
Had a second Exide at home, for a future mod... (that mod is now out of the window...) so just finished swapping the battery out and taking my toy for a run to charge them up... Hopefully, with a good aux, the starter battery should balance out nicely, be under a lot less stress and should start in the morning... everything crossed.
Note to self... get a laser thermometer to measure the temps of the batteries... also one of those very snazzy meters that will measure the current flowing down a cable... and a decent portable battery tester... Don't want to get bitten by that one again... extremely embarassing...
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