![[486]](https://data.irate4x4.com/avatars/m/0/94.jpg?1700178133){kind=avatar}
[486]
smells things
grandpa had a hot water hose bib in the garage just for this sorta reason
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Operation Mobile Meth Lab Retrieval -12v cummins guys and allison tranny guys welcome.
- Thread starter Sandy Johnson
- Start date
Squamch
Canadian
Yeah a "dog wash" station is on my dream house list.
arse_sidewards
Contrary to everything
- Joined
- May 19, 2020
- Member Number
- 71
- Messages
- 7,831
If your wife ever makes you uninstall a shower keep it and install in the garage. Your standing compressor can live in it when you're not using it. That's what my uncle did.
Sandy Johnson
Harry Member
Limped it home
They were not. They seemed fine to me, but I couldn't see my backside
My wife tells me "straight to the shower, you smell like gas".
Me "that's diesel honey".
DozerDan82
Master of the Universe!!!
So just to quickly recap the whole 'check the ground with out fucking with the ground' part. Was it mentioned and or did you try adding a new ground? Sometimes its best to just add new ones, known good and see if it helps. Long shot- maybe but could be easy fix (beyond the other mess of wiring)
Sandy Johnson
Harry Member
I did check it, no significant resistance. Didn't add a new ground, mainly because I ran out of time (I gave myself 2 hours to troubleshoot the issue).
Long story short, it's becoming apparent that I have more than one issue. Haven't had much time to look at it or write a big update since we got back because I've been getting in some family time for the weekend instead.
I'll probably tear into it Monday after the kids are in bed.
[486]
smells things
multimeter doesn't tell the tale
I'd hit it with a test light made outta a headlight bulb
Blacksheep10
Well-known member
- Joined
- May 19, 2020
- Member Number
- 91
- Messages
- 448
That’s what one person was responding to some know it all earlier, basic resistance is not the same as the load test. You need to see if that ground will stand up under a considerable load
arse_sidewards
Contrary to everything
- Joined
- May 19, 2020
- Member Number
- 71
- Messages
- 7,831
Random blower motor works good if you're more the audio type.
[486]
smells things
blower motor draws 20a
headlight draws 5
headlight draws 5
arse_sidewards
Contrary to everything
- Joined
- May 19, 2020
- Member Number
- 71
- Messages
- 7,831
So when it can only pull 15 it'll slow down enough for you to notice.
[486]
smells things
sensor ground is sometimes 20ga wire, and they will glow if you abuse them
I have blower motor just for this purpose.Random blower motor works good if you're more the audio type.
shortbus4x4
Junk collector
How do you know?
Then you'll know that ground wasn't the problem. Lol.
Sandy Johnson
Harry Member
Ok, so. Here's the boring story in all its glory:
I drove down to my parent's house in San Diego on thanksgiving. We hung out, did the thanksgiving thing, and I picked up a tool back I had forgotten last time I was down there for our wheeling trip. Friday morning, I awoke at the butt crack of dawn and did my best cannonball impersonation in the mother-in-law's car back up to Torrance. I wanted to get an early start, get home and eat dinner, see the kids before they went to bed, etc. No one was on the road that early, I made it up in record time, things were looking up.
Boobs
Everyone's electronics stuck outside of the port of LA:
I roll up to the 24x7 storage facility to find out that at least today, it wasn't 24x7. Fawk.
So I head back to the in-laws house, send an nasty email to the local facility manager, and wait until 9:00. Of course when we get there, it's a shitshow. Lots of people wanted in, they're trying to figure out how to get the gate open, the facility manager wants to whine about it. Whatever. I load up my tools, reconnect the house and chassis batteries, fire it up and leave. I have to apologize for the lack of pictures beyond this point. Things got real and I didn't think to take any more, except for one.
I had a self imposed deadline of 11:00 am to find and fix my issue. I didn't get over to the park parking lot I had planned to do all the work(not allowed to work on your junk at the storage place and the manager was prowling around there) until 9:45. Cool, I'll just plug in my code reader and see what codes the TCM has for me.... AAAAAnd the OBDII port is dead.
I couldn't remember if I had to to have the motor on, so I fire it up.. nothing. Ok, maybe my little PC dongle doesn't work right. I'll try the craptastic little Bluetooth code reader I had used before on it. No power.. Ok, I'll fire up the motor again and try... Annnd now the starter doesn't' even click.
Did I blow a fuse for the ignition? Did a relay go bad? I start troubleshooting in exactly the wrong way. First I figure that when I turn the key, everything off the chassis doesn't come on- house power is good. So I check all my fuses and relays.. they're good. Then I check to make sure the ground didn't come loose on the anything that I'm aware of- battery, bus bar for all my accessories, etc. Then I check to make sure my battery disconnect switch didn't somehow crap out... wait.. batteries.
I finally pull my head out of my ass and test the batteries. They're dead, 2 volts. 
I have no idea how or why they survived sitting in storage for 2 weeks, cold started the motorhome, drove it a few blocks, then cold started it again without the starter even sound slow, but that's where I was at. I had planned to turn the key and test the voltage out of my TPS to see if it was fawked, but with dead batteries that was out of the question. It was time for Plan B.
Plan B wasn't very well thought out. I was really hoping I could get more information reading the codes off the TCM and testing the TPS. So instead I went through, cleaned up and bare wires I could find that might be causing a short, cleaned up the tail light and hitch wiring that looked sketchy, and then jumped it from the house batteries via the battery boost switch. It fired right up and threw the check trans light after a few seconds. Damn it. I had one more TPS, so I swapped that in, jumped it again and... no check trans light. Maybe I somehow temporarily fixed my problem? SPOILER ALERT: I didn't.
I said by to my father in law, who wanted to hang out and see if he could help, and headed out for the not-so-open road of I-405. I was careful with this thing, trying to avoid any bumps I thought would jiggle something loose, taking it easy on the pedal, etc. I cruised all the way to highway 101 at 60 mph, tranny playing nice the whole way. Unfortunately as soon as I jumped on 101, BOOM- check trans light comes on, torque convert unlocks. Dang it.
So I drove home with no TC lockup. Tried to keep the tranny cool over big hills, and it works pretty well heading into Ventura because traffic was moving at a brisk 10 - 15 mph and the torque converter can handle that:
I was making pretty good time, and figured out the sweet spot on the throttle to keep at 60 mph in 5th gear with minimal slipping as long as no one made me slow down. There was of course some road rage when you're in the slow lane, in a pig that doesn't like to speed up or slow down, with thanksgiving weekend traffic. I got the trans too hot on the two hills I thought I would. The TCM gets mad and limits me to 3rd gear until it cools down and I turn off/turn back on the motor. Something scary happened each time I'd shut off the motorhome. Despite the battery voltage being good on the house power, each time it got harder and harder to get the battery boost switch to engage. Not sure why, but I'm going to replace all that junk.
On the second time I was waiting for the trans to cool down in a park-n-ride lot, I hopped under there and tried to swap in an old TPS to see what would happen. It's dark at this point, and I'm under the motorhome with a head lamp trying not to burn my arm on the trans cooler lines and as I tried to tighten the two bolts holding the TPS in, something pops off and hits me in the forehead. I look up there and the guts of the TPS are hanging out. There's a little cap on it that holds everything together and whatever glue or epoxy they used had failed. Ok, I start loosening the bolts again and put the other one back in. About the time I'm climbing out from under the motorhome, the local sheriff noticed there was an old motorhome with it's lights off sitting in a dark park-n-ride parking lot in the middle of nowhere, so we had to have a conversation. I led with "Hi! I promise I'm not going to sleep here." I think he was stoked that I could form a sentence and didn't have meth teeth. He seemed blown away that I had spare throttle position sensors in there. I told him I was mad enough at it to sell the damn thing, and he replied with: "The funny part is you could probably get a lot for it here these days."
Back on the road. There was a glimmer of hope with the check trans light didn't immediately turn on when I started it up... it waited until I had to bust a 3 point turn in the park-n-ride to crush my hopes and dreams of doing 70 mph the last 100 miles home. Ah well. I coaxed her up to 60 mph, turned the stereo up loud to drown out the turbo whine and headed home.
Back at home, I had to move the wife's truck and open a gate to put the thing away, so I parked across the street. Gate open, truck moved, and I go to start it back up..... the relay for the battery boost absolutely, positively doesn't want to click. When it finally did, I saw out of the corner of my eye, that for a brief moment, the OBDII port sent power to the Bluetooth reader I had left in there. Ok, I put it in reverse to pull into my... I said I put it into rever....WHY WON'T YOU GO INTO REVERSE NOW?!?! I put it into drive... nope. What The. Fawk. Reverse, nope. Neutral, I guess so because the parking pawl kicked off and it started to roll... Drive? Nope Reverse? Nope? Drive? CHECK TRANS LIGHT Yep! Good lord this thing is hosed. I stuffed it on the side of the house, brushed my hands off as I walked away and haven't touched it since.
So... Should I turn this thread into a Harry Doesn't Know How To Fix Motorhome Electrical Systems, But He's Gonna Try? Or spare you guys the
gory details?
Step 1 is going to be new batteries and remove power wires for anything other than just the trans and the motor to start troubleshooting.
I drove down to my parent's house in San Diego on thanksgiving. We hung out, did the thanksgiving thing, and I picked up a tool back I had forgotten last time I was down there for our wheeling trip. Friday morning, I awoke at the butt crack of dawn and did my best cannonball impersonation in the mother-in-law's car back up to Torrance. I wanted to get an early start, get home and eat dinner, see the kids before they went to bed, etc. No one was on the road that early, I made it up in record time, things were looking up.
Boobs
Everyone's electronics stuck outside of the port of LA:
I roll up to the 24x7 storage facility to find out that at least today, it wasn't 24x7. Fawk.
So I head back to the in-laws house, send an nasty email to the local facility manager, and wait until 9:00. Of course when we get there, it's a shitshow. Lots of people wanted in, they're trying to figure out how to get the gate open, the facility manager wants to whine about it. Whatever. I load up my tools, reconnect the house and chassis batteries, fire it up and leave. I have to apologize for the lack of pictures beyond this point. Things got real and I didn't think to take any more, except for one.
I had a self imposed deadline of 11:00 am to find and fix my issue. I didn't get over to the park parking lot I had planned to do all the work(not allowed to work on your junk at the storage place and the manager was prowling around there) until 9:45. Cool, I'll just plug in my code reader and see what codes the TCM has for me.... AAAAAnd the OBDII port is dead.
I couldn't remember if I had to to have the motor on, so I fire it up.. nothing. Ok, maybe my little PC dongle doesn't work right. I'll try the craptastic little Bluetooth code reader I had used before on it. No power.. Ok, I'll fire up the motor again and try... Annnd now the starter doesn't' even click.
Did I blow a fuse for the ignition? Did a relay go bad? I start troubleshooting in exactly the wrong way. First I figure that when I turn the key, everything off the chassis doesn't come on- house power is good. So I check all my fuses and relays.. they're good. Then I check to make sure the ground didn't come loose on the anything that I'm aware of- battery, bus bar for all my accessories, etc. Then I check to make sure my battery disconnect switch didn't somehow crap out... wait.. batteries.
I finally pull my head out of my ass and test the batteries. They're dead, 2 volts. I have no idea how or why they survived sitting in storage for 2 weeks, cold started the motorhome, drove it a few blocks, then cold started it again without the starter even sound slow, but that's where I was at. I had planned to turn the key and test the voltage out of my TPS to see if it was fawked, but with dead batteries that was out of the question. It was time for Plan B.
Plan B wasn't very well thought out. I was really hoping I could get more information reading the codes off the TCM and testing the TPS. So instead I went through, cleaned up and bare wires I could find that might be causing a short, cleaned up the tail light and hitch wiring that looked sketchy, and then jumped it from the house batteries via the battery boost switch. It fired right up and threw the check trans light after a few seconds. Damn it. I had one more TPS, so I swapped that in, jumped it again and... no check trans light. Maybe I somehow temporarily fixed my problem? SPOILER ALERT: I didn't.
I said by to my father in law, who wanted to hang out and see if he could help, and headed out for the not-so-open road of I-405. I was careful with this thing, trying to avoid any bumps I thought would jiggle something loose, taking it easy on the pedal, etc. I cruised all the way to highway 101 at 60 mph, tranny playing nice the whole way. Unfortunately as soon as I jumped on 101, BOOM- check trans light comes on, torque convert unlocks. Dang it.
So I drove home with no TC lockup. Tried to keep the tranny cool over big hills, and it works pretty well heading into Ventura because traffic was moving at a brisk 10 - 15 mph and the torque converter can handle that:
I was making pretty good time, and figured out the sweet spot on the throttle to keep at 60 mph in 5th gear with minimal slipping as long as no one made me slow down. There was of course some road rage when you're in the slow lane, in a pig that doesn't like to speed up or slow down, with thanksgiving weekend traffic. I got the trans too hot on the two hills I thought I would. The TCM gets mad and limits me to 3rd gear until it cools down and I turn off/turn back on the motor. Something scary happened each time I'd shut off the motorhome. Despite the battery voltage being good on the house power, each time it got harder and harder to get the battery boost switch to engage. Not sure why, but I'm going to replace all that junk.
On the second time I was waiting for the trans to cool down in a park-n-ride lot, I hopped under there and tried to swap in an old TPS to see what would happen. It's dark at this point, and I'm under the motorhome with a head lamp trying not to burn my arm on the trans cooler lines and as I tried to tighten the two bolts holding the TPS in, something pops off and hits me in the forehead. I look up there and the guts of the TPS are hanging out. There's a little cap on it that holds everything together and whatever glue or epoxy they used had failed. Ok, I start loosening the bolts again and put the other one back in. About the time I'm climbing out from under the motorhome, the local sheriff noticed there was an old motorhome with it's lights off sitting in a dark park-n-ride parking lot in the middle of nowhere, so we had to have a conversation. I led with "Hi! I promise I'm not going to sleep here." I think he was stoked that I could form a sentence and didn't have meth teeth. He seemed blown away that I had spare throttle position sensors in there. I told him I was mad enough at it to sell the damn thing, and he replied with: "The funny part is you could probably get a lot for it here these days."
Back on the road. There was a glimmer of hope with the check trans light didn't immediately turn on when I started it up... it waited until I had to bust a 3 point turn in the park-n-ride to crush my hopes and dreams of doing 70 mph the last 100 miles home. Ah well. I coaxed her up to 60 mph, turned the stereo up loud to drown out the turbo whine and headed home.
Back at home, I had to move the wife's truck and open a gate to put the thing away, so I parked across the street. Gate open, truck moved, and I go to start it back up..... the relay for the battery boost absolutely, positively doesn't want to click. When it finally did, I saw out of the corner of my eye, that for a brief moment, the OBDII port sent power to the Bluetooth reader I had left in there.
Ok, I put it in reverse to pull into my... I said I put it into rever....WHY WON'T YOU GO INTO REVERSE NOW?!?! I put it into drive... nope. What The. Fawk. Reverse, nope. Neutral, I guess so because the parking pawl kicked off and it started to roll... Drive? Nope Reverse? Nope? Drive? CHECK TRANS LIGHT Yep! Good lord this thing is hosed. I stuffed it on the side of the house, brushed my hands off as I walked away and haven't touched it since.So... Should I turn this thread into a Harry Doesn't Know How To Fix Motorhome Electrical Systems, But He's Gonna Try? Or spare you guys the
gory details?
Step 1 is going to be new batteries and remove power wires for anything other than just the trans and the motor to start troubleshooting.
I like your plan.
OBD connector sounds like someone wired it to not an ignition power source, they have dedicated pins for the 12V. usually they go to a cigar lighter or some other aux circuit that's key on power.
OBD connector sounds like someone wired it to not an ignition power source, they have dedicated pins for the 12V. usually they go to a cigar lighter or some other aux circuit that's key on power.
Sandy Johnson
Harry Member
Can't find the one you linked for sale online, but I did find this one that looks like a slightly different version from the same MFG. Seems to do all the same stuff although I can't wrap my head around how the chassis battery/alternator can charge the house battery without the house battery load also killing the chassis battery, but I'm willing to try it out. What do you think?well...
when the time comes to correct that. Check this out
Auxiliary Battery Switches | InPower
The ABS product provides for automatic auxiliary battery control. The ABS provides for alternator charging of the auxiliary battery and the isolation of the auxiliary battery loads preventing these loads from discharging the primary chassis battery.www.inpowerelectronics.com
about the size of a index card...use them either from the bucket truck upfitter or in our projects at work to run the inverter battery. Work great dont die
InPower ABS3-200A Auxiliary Battery Switch, 200A, 12V, Dual Lug | Waytek
diodes.
they're like check valves for electricity.
pretty standard shit.
edit:
some also are voltage sensing relays, connect the house to the chassis when it senses over 13V or whatever.
that one appears to be a solid state voltage sensing switch.
You need to check every wire and sensor on that trans from the case to wherever it terminates. And have you read this? It talks about a sensor or two
Sandy Johnson
Harry Member
Good info! I really need to pull the codes off of the TCM because these things are so complicated. I think my first order of business after disconnecting all the extra crap I don't need to drive (house power BS and eliminating all the BS that connects it to the chassis power) is going to be tracking down why I suddenly can't connect to the OBDII port. Gonna poke around where manche suggested.
aczlan
Good Morning!
Usually the OBD connector has battery power (at least in my limited sample of Volvo, Ford, Dodge and GM products), you can't connect to the ECU unless the key is on, but the OBDII dongle powers up when plugged in.
Aaron Z
if the house power is a separate system, why even mess with it? does it have some power or wiring it shares with the transmission? Dont go getting all out in left field before chasing down the main issue. Which appears to be the transmission and its electrical sensors and wiring.
if you can just disconnect the house power at the batteries, thats fine. but dont go disconnecting stuff that isnt broken because when you go to put it back together it may become broken.
Focus on the issue. if you are unsuccessful troubleshooting in the direct transmission wiring then you can start expanding your orbit from there.
i lost power to the obd2 on my because it was tied to the cigarette lighter circut
also, research if there are any internal sensors or connections inside the transmission. you may be able to find out what is frying out your TPS from there.
here we go on some real information on what makes it tick.
page 13 is your wiring pin out.
next page has all the DTC codes.
according to that voltage problems will trip a check trans light. so it's possible you just need to make your charging system not suck.
page 13 is your wiring pin out.
next page has all the DTC codes.
according to that voltage problems will trip a check trans light. so it's possible you just need to make your charging system not suck.