Lazy Daze Owners' Group

Anyone do either of these jobs?  I've done them before on the Chevy trucks but not the vans..

On 27.11.2011 09:01, lejest2003 wrote: "  And hey, I'll bet you didn't even break a finger nail doing the job, did you? ;-))"
 Yup.. No effort on my behalf.. However, the issue was not completely resolved either.. When I picked up the vehicle I should have kept an eye on things closer but when it fired up in the parking lot the volt meter was low again -- for about 20-30 seconds and then the alternator kicked in and looked fine for the ride home.  Go figure.  I drove it a little that day and all was good.. The next day however (Sunday) we went to leave for home (~1300 miles) and the alternator was not working at all -- back to the 12.3 volts and dropping depending on how many lights/fans were running on the van half of the RV.  I checked under the hood again and nothing looked out of place -- wiring was fine, etc.. Visited the local NAPA store (very helpful guys there!) and they checked the battery with their special tester which indicated no issue there.  They then ran a diagnostic on the alternator and said something funny was going on -- the bars were showing nothing when they ought to show something but he was unsure what the issue might be.
 So, we bought a beefier AC battery charger (55A model) and ran it off the genset for several hours as we drove south on Hwy 101 from Newport -- after a few hours of driving with somewhat dim headlights (it was pouring rain!!), I was increasing the speed from 45MPH to 55MPH and the alternator decided it was time to get to work and popped the voltage up to 14.1 and then shortly thereafter down to about 13.6 and remained that way for the remainder of the trip home allowing me to shut off the genset (which ran for >16 hours on the entire trip -- all of it while driving).

Any ideas on what might cause the alternator to behave this way? Perhaps a loose wire?  The alternator on this particular rig has the main 12V line and if I recall two other wires going to it -- I don't recall what those are for.
Perhaps one of those is loose..
 P.S. You were right about the belt tension.. When I kick in the AC (or defroster), I get a short squeal for about 5-10 seconds -- I'll need to adjust that before the next outing.
 Overall, it was a good trip albeit short-- I do have to fix a leak in the bunk area as we did have some water in there prior to leaving (from some rain at home) but I tried to seal things up prior to leaving and it must have paid off because there was no additional water puddling up there after driving through pouring rain for several hours along the Oregon Coast.

P.S.  I might have seen an LD heading north on Hwy 101 south of Reedsport on Sunday afternoon -- but am not completely sure as I only got a quick glimpse as it was driving quickly in the opposite direction..

On 29.11.2011 11:27, George Peters wrote: " Sounds like your battery isolator is failing.
Electronic looking component on the far left side of the firewall under the hood as you look at it.
My original died recently, I googled the part number that is on the piece and got an exact replacement for about $20."

That was something that Ramon had suggested privately to me as well and I mentioned it to the guy at the Napa store but he had no idea on how to diagnose one of those..

By the way, I *think* mine is near the battery and is blue in color with large heat-sink fins on it -- perhaps about 4-6" long by perhaps 3" give or take?  Is this the one (on the drivers side) or is that something else?  On the left side (passenger side) is only the radiator overflow and a few other odds-n-ends but ours is a late '85 and perhaps things were relocated..

Hmm.. In looking at the specs for the Sure Power Industries isolators, I may need to jump to the 120A model over the smaller 70A model that I suspect may be in place now -- since I've just upgraded the alternator to the 78A model (ours is the 12Si model from what I gather)..  I'll look into this further.. I suppose that IF I see this happen again in the future I could bypass the isolator temporarily to see if the problem disappears.. Luckily so far when it's not working, it generally stays that way for a while..

These are exactly the symptom of a loose belt. VERY loose!

P.S. You were right about the belt tension.. When I kick in the AC (or defroster), I get a short squeal for about 5-10 seconds -- I'll need to adjust that before the next outing.