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I bought a 1977 Ford motor home couple of weeks ago. Ran great for the 100 miles from seller to my place. I hooked up the electric from the house and forgot all about the rest. Now need to travel with it and tried to start and nothing happened. Thought that maybe the switches between batteries may have drained the one for the car so charged it with my car and tired again. It started after 30 minutes of charging!!! For about 20 seconds and then died. What is happening with my baby and how do I get her ready for the road???
Please, help!!
It may be so many thing, & simple but till one goes over the system & diagnose it, you may be dumping quite bit of cash in it for parts & not solving a thing. You need one who want to help you & knows about RV as a 1977 at RV dealer or repair facility, will cost you as much as a new one & still be a 77.
The chassis is ford, but the RV is what?
Some builder built those with what was there laying on the floor when they put it together, no diagram of any kind, manual or any infos. The only infos available is the chassis(engine, tranny, chassis lighting.
wrench
Start with the basics. Have the alternator and the battery tested.
The switch between the engine and chassis battery could be bad, but that is an solid state charging box, so another item to have tested.
It is an old Ford with old Ford wiring, but still should not be that bad to fix, unless some hack or a mouse got into it!
Don't let "Wrench" scare you. It very well could be something as easy as the voltage regulator. You did say it ran fine on the way home, just after sitting it had a dead battery. And with it starting off a charge but dieing right away,(I'm assuming you disconnected the jumper cables)I'm guessing the alt. is not charging at all.
Good luck on having it checked out and keep the site posted on what was repaired!