1987 Itasca Sunflyer 22RC House Battery Wiring Help

[cascadeflyer]

Hi Everyone,

I replaced my house batteries but wasn't smart enough to snap a picture so I could ensure everything was put back together correctly. I took the batteries out, then a few days later bought new ones.

You'll see taped up ends in the picture, as I needed to take a trip and didn't want bare connectors flying around in there. I have so far only connected the front (to the right) battery.

I am comfortable with how the main battery leads connect, including the jumpers between the two batteries. What I am unsure about is:

-The couple of small leads which I think may go to the levelers
-The configuration of negative bus leads and hot leads leaving the second battery (the one to the rear, or on the left in my picture.)

What I'm really looking for is a picture of a functioning setup that closely resembles my rig's vintage. Thanks in advance.

[Decuct CoCo]

It appears you are using two 12v house batteries.
If so your main cable negative cable should be attached to one battery while the positive cable is attached to the other battery with the jumpers between the two neg to neg & positive to positive in what is known as parallel connection..


regarding the White and Green wires your guess is as good as mine..
Green is a common ground circuit color but so is White in automotive applications..
you will need to trace down at least one of the circuits to figure which is which.

[Morich]

I've been putting off looking at this too hard and hoping folks with near the same RV would pop in! Not happening so I will give it a shot as there is "some" info that we can guess at from here. The two big problems are that the online info only goes as far back as 1990 and that the wiring gets changed as the RV gets older and more people work on it.
From your picture, I can see there have been changes made and that throws some of the written info into doubt.
But we do what we have to do, right? Sorry we can't be more specific!

The battery area is one that doesn't change all that much so maybe we can get it right, but do some checking before trusting!
Go here for the overall wiring list for Winnebago:
https://www.winnebago.com/Files/File...ram/Wiring.htm

If we go down to the nearest year 1990 and choose something close to what you have, it may be as clear as we have online.
This Chassis installation may be close to what you have and you can start to sort the main part?
https://www.winnebago.com/Files/File...990/097336.pdf

Note that the first page is labeled down in the lower right corner as Chevy and the second Ford? Choose the one close to what you have and maybe you can sort out the rest?
On the small wires, there "may" be labels whi9ch would be a great help. But that may not work for you if too many have been changed, so look carefully?
Maybe like this:

To "decode" the label on small wires, we can use this chart:
https://www.winnebago.com/Files/File...ical_guide.pdf

For bigger cables, when new, they were marked with tape on the ends but quite likely gone by now?

Good luck as you do have a bit of tough to sort it!

[cascadeflyer]

Thanks, everyone! I have a handle on it now. The red lead is connected to the front battery, and I’ll connect the black negative bus lead the the left battery negative. Then I’ll connect the jumpers between the two.

Then, I’ll connect the green and white smaller leads to the negative of one of the batteries.

Appreciate the help.

[Morich]

I might question that or possibly we are not speaking the same??
I see this as two batteries on the right as being coach power and the far left as being the chassis/start battery. I would not expect them to be connected as post #2 above shows. They are different batteries and only the negative/ ground sides are connected together.

One of the [problems of looking at connecting them is that the cable colors are no longer correct as red cables have been replaced with black cables. So we can't use colors to ID them! You have two posts which have both red positive cables on the same post with what should be black negative cables, so using colors is no longer anything we can use.

That indicates that whoever wired /replaced the cables was less than stellar at their job which then bleeds over into asking what they did with the smaller wires. Did they do it as they should and run negative wiring to the ground bus which keeps it off the batteries or did they go totally bonkers and run negative cables to the battery?

Since we know the last work was wrong, I would want to verify where the green and white wires should go. Without knowing what they do, can we assume they are anything or does it need to be checked first?

the way they are laying, it might be a guess that they went to the same point but guessing on this can get really expensive if you are not right.
I would not expect anybody to run two ground wires (green and black?) direct to the batteries as that is such a bad place to pick up corrosion and make such a nuisance of the wires.
Some options in order of how I might expect them to be if wired more correctly?
1. The green and black are both positive and go to a positive post but feed two different
items. Do they have fuses somewhere along the line? That would seem to indicate a
positive lead. No fuse but connected to the positive battery? That's a hazard!
2. Maybe one is positive and the other negative? What do they feed and does one have
a fuse?
3. Last choice would be to assume they were wired to negative as that is always poor
practice. Any wiring directly on the battery will suffer from corrosion and make more
trouble than if it is wired away from the battery fumes, like maybe to a ground buss
with the other ground wires.

If they have no ID stamped on them, they may be aftermarket items and that means you really do need to chase out what they go to and what purpose they serve. Guessing that they do something good may leave you connecting a wire which is left abandoned and if you put battery on it without a fuse, etc to protect it, you may be building in a fire hazard if that wire gets grounded at some point in the future!!!

One case that I have seen is a set of aftermarket lights under the bumper. They got removed but the wires were left. If you connect them without knowing where they go, you may set up a situation where they start a fire, if they have no fuse!

Guessing on electronics is one way to run the bill way up!

[Ray,IN]

Originally Posted by cascadeflyer

Thanks, everyone! I have a handle on it now. The red lead is connected to the front battery, and I’ll connect the black negative bus lead the the left battery negative. Then I’ll connect the jumpers between the two.

Then, I’ll connect the green and white smaller leads to the negative of one of the batteries.

Appreciate the help.

Sounds like a plan to me. You are referring to the loose black cable at bottom-center of picture, it should connect to the left house battery neg, post, with that unattached neg. jumper between the house batteries.

[Morich]

There is still one big question to ask if using that plan! If you plan to use the black cable that ends near front center of the picture as the negative battery connection to the ground buss, what is the black cable already connected to the negative post of the first battery at right?
I did a little markup to point out what I am questioning as I can think of no time when I've seen two large battery cables both run to the ground buss bar.
Click this picture to get a better view!


I agree with connecting the two short black cables to the posts as shown in green but if we are planning to add the cable marked in red to the negative of the center battery, what does the cable marked in orange do? Are you planning for two cables to run from negative battery to the ground?
Does that really seem normal or does it need more checking to see what each of those cables lead to on the hidden ends?

Considering the way this area has been built, I would not trust anything without checking! If you start connecting positive cables to negative without knowing what they do, you are really looking for trouble!

Then if you get it right on the big cables which are the easy part, you get to look at the small green and white ones!

[cascadeflyer]

Ray, thanks. Agreed. I did what I said I was going to do and everything looks and works good, though I haven't tried using the levelers yet. However, they weren't working before I took the old batteries out anyway.

Morich, that black cable was connected to the battery on the right because I had installed that battery and connected it before I had purchased the second battery. That cable is now connected to negative on the house battery to the left.