I went to start my van last week and it was stone dead. This was surprising as although I keep it stored in a big Motorhome port beside the house and keep it off the road over winter I charge it overnight every Saturday night until the charging light for he batteries turns green. I had assumed it was charging my vehicle battery as well as my 2 leisure batteries as normal. I thought it was a dodgy vehicle battery but it is less than 2 years old. The multimeter was showing zero and a smart charger showed nothing.
I tried jump starting it with a forklift which worked fine (left it running a while) and I have the battery a good charge and got it back up to full capacity. A week later I checked it and the battery was reading 85% on the smart charger and well over 13 volts so it is holding charge fine. I know it is not charging from EHU as there is no difference on the multimeter when it is plugged in using the van charger but the volts rise when the smart charger is hooked on directly to the battery.
I see wires running to a small black box above the battery with 4 thin (mostly red) wires coming out of it. I can post a photo if needed. I thought a potential issue was the Marder anti rodent black box that seems to be factory fitted. One of the blue wires from it has come loose as the point where it was attached to the body under the scuttle has rusted free thanks to the well know rain water issue with older Ducato windscreen scuttle over the years before I bought the van.
I’m not mechanically or electrically minded but is there anything else I need to check with my multimeter? Perhaps something near the fuse box or where the EHU port enters the van? The leisure batteries are fine and any fuses I have found seem fine using the multimeter inc one near the vehicle battery. I had a look on the forum just now but did not see a thread that seemed to have the same issue.
As the title says it is a 1999 Ducato. 2.5 TD.
Thanks in advance
Gavin
I tried jump starting it with a forklift which worked fine (left it running a while) and I have the battery a good charge and got it back up to full capacity. A week later I checked it and the battery was reading 85% on the smart charger and well over 13 volts so it is holding charge fine. I know it is not charging from EHU as there is no difference on the multimeter when it is plugged in using the van charger but the volts rise when the smart charger is hooked on directly to the battery.
I see wires running to a small black box above the battery with 4 thin (mostly red) wires coming out of it. I can post a photo if needed. I thought a potential issue was the Marder anti rodent black box that seems to be factory fitted. One of the blue wires from it has come loose as the point where it was attached to the body under the scuttle has rusted free thanks to the well know rain water issue with older Ducato windscreen scuttle over the years before I bought the van.
I’m not mechanically or electrically minded but is there anything else I need to check with my multimeter? Perhaps something near the fuse box or where the EHU port enters the van? The leisure batteries are fine and any fuses I have found seem fine using the multimeter inc one near the vehicle battery. I had a look on the forum just now but did not see a thread that seemed to have the same issue.
As the title says it is a 1999 Ducato. 2.5 TD.
Thanks in advance
Gavin