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 someotherguy
Moderator
Posts: 23394
Age: 43
Loc: Texas
Reg: 08-01-03
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06-12-12 05:05 AM - Post#2236104
Another wrecker question...
This truck has two batteries. It seems that the one on the passenger side at the rear of the engine compartment is for starting. Is that all it's for?
What is the one on the driver's side, front of the engine compartment, for?
Appears there's an isolator on the firewall.
Is there a common failure point in this system, are the isolators known to have trouble?
I ask because this truck sat dead from Feb 25th when it got wrecked, and we put it back on the road last night. When I went to pick it up yesterday they had to jump it off. When I got home I put it on the charger. The alternator is charging fine and the truck ran fine for probably 6 or more hours with many shutoffs and restarts, until it refused to start around 5:30 AM, and a jump got it to start immediately. Seems to me it's got a dead cell but looking for other opinions before I buy another battery.
Richard
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Chevrolet Customer Service
Contributor
Posts: 200
Reg: 07-05-10
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06-13-12 07:54 AM - Post#2236599
In response to someotherguy
Richard,
I would be happy to look into this for you. Please feel free to contact me privately with the last eight of you VIN. This will allow me to check my internal resources. Thank you in advance.
Tricia, Chevrolet Customer Service.
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someotherguy
Moderator
Posts: 23394
Age: 43
Loc: Texas
Reg: 08-01-03
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06-13-12 11:29 AM - Post#2236700
In response to Chevrolet Customer Service
I was looking for some hopefully more-or-less direct help from people with direct experience/knowledge, as this is a fairly critical issue - while the things you might see on the TV "reality" shows with repo men are a far cry from night-to-night reality, it's not a stretch of the imagination at all that an unexpected no-start condition on a repo truck can very quickly become a life or death scenario.
The battery on the passenger side had recently been replaced with a brand new AC Delco unit that I *suspect* had a bad cell in it. Behavior follows that it would work OK for a while and then suddenly not want to start, appearing almost completely dead, just barely a nudge out of the starter. A jump would make it start almost immediately which is way out of character for a battery that is actually drained.
Today I swapped it out with another of the same unit (warranty replacement) and it cranked right up, brought it home to put it on a slow charge to be ready for tonight but the charger insists it's already 100%. On a whim I put the charger on the driver's side battery and while it appeared "low" on the reading I'm used to that and within less than 10 minutes or so on the low 2A setting it reached 100%.
I checked the two maxi-fuses (175A each I believe) under the black plastic cover on the passenger side firewall, both had continuity, but I did not disconnect the cables to do so - didn't think it was necessary, but I could be wrong.
With the new battery in place it reads over 13V engine off, and around 14.5V with the engine running/alternator charging.
Still, I'm not totally convinced it's fixed...anybody have input?
Thanks,
Richard
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someotherguy
Moderator
Posts: 23394
Age: 43
Loc: Texas
Reg: 08-01-03
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06-16-12 05:46 AM - Post#2237750
In response to someotherguy
333 views and nobody knows. 
Problem appears to have been a bad cell in the brand new battery on the passenger side. With the swapped out battery it's held up fine several nights in a row.
Richard
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tmsnyder
Senior Member
Posts: 915
Loc: Buffalo, NY
Reg: 06-13-06
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06-25-12 11:05 AM - Post#2241154
In response to someotherguy
Is this the 6.5L? My '97 has the two batteries hooked up in parallel, for cranking and everything. No fuse, just straight to the starter motor like a normal car.
I've heard of RV's hooked up like you describe though. When the motor's not running, the RV operates off of the one battery. The other battery is for starting the motor, and when running the engine charges up both batteries.
'56 Chevy 4dr 210 327ci 3-speed on-the-floor OD
'97 GMC K1500 Suburban Diesel |
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someotherguy
Moderator
Posts: 23394
Age: 43
Loc: Texas
Reg: 08-01-03
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06-25-12 11:54 AM - Post#2241165
In response to tmsnyder
Nope; sorry, I should have given a little more info. This is on a 2009 model 3500HD with the 6.0 gas engine. It's been behaving fairly well since replacing that battery, so here's hoping it continues that way. I do see the voltmeter a little to the right side of 14, more than I would like, but this truck is also constantly recharging a laptop, flashlights, GPS, wireless tow lights...
Richard
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 Rick_L
Honored Member
Posts: 24733
Loc: Katy, Tx, USA
Reg: 07-06-00
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06-25-12 07:01 PM - Post#2241296
In response to someotherguy
The only way to know where you stand is to pull each battery and do a load test, charge if needed prior to the test.
That will tell you each battery's condition.
I don't know what they do with isolators these days. In older days they were not all that effective if one battery had a dead cell. I had an older 2500 with two batteries and if one battery had a dead cell, it drug down the good battery's charge. End result was that both batteries had to be good for reliable cranking.
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someotherguy
Moderator
Posts: 23394
Age: 43
Loc: Texas
Reg: 08-01-03
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02-14-13 01:48 AM - Post#2316653
In response to Rick_L
Bringing up this old topic because now the OTHER battery is giving me trouble.
The patient again is a 2009 3500HD chassis cab, 6.0 gas engine, wrecker unit. It has two batteries - the one on the passenger rear corner (next to firewall) seems to power the entire truck including starting; then there's another at the driver's front corner which I have zero idea what it's for! We have two other trucks like this and they only have the one on the passenger side.
OK, so the one on the driver's side is leaking from the negative terminal and giving off serious gas so I disconnected it and wrapped the cable ends in electrical tape. The truck still cranks right up, all lights and functions work the same, and all my equipment is operating normally as well.
So what's the driver's side battery for? It's hooked to the isolator via the large cable, and has a single fusible link coming off the large cable as well...and a smaller wire (maybe 14 ga) to one of the two aux terminals on the electrical center.
I wonder if this was just some kind of optional prep that ended up not getting utilized?
Richard
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someotherguy
Moderator
Posts: 23394
Age: 43
Loc: Texas
Reg: 08-01-03
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02-14-13 12:55 PM - Post#2316791
In response to someotherguy
OK, so this truck is equipped with RPO TP2, auxiliary camper battery. From what I can see it's what I thought - optional prep, that is not being utilized in the way this truck is equipped.
The wrecker unit is hydraulic of course so it doesn't need much extra power other than a clutch on the pump (just like an A/C compressor) and a small amount of power for the valve body, and it's a repo style truck so there's no extra light bar on the roof or warning lights anywhere.
It does have a good degree of added equipment though like a DVR system with cameras, laptop computer with cell modem, and all my gear to keep charged - flashlight, GPS, cell phone, yada yada but the main battery seems to be doing a fine job handling all of it. I ran all last night with the stinking, leaking, 2nd battery disconnected.
From what I can see this battery is isolated in a fashion that does NOT have anything to do with starting the truck. In fact when the main battery went bad the aux battery was still good, truck would not start. If I'd thought of it on the spot I could have jumped the bad battery with the good, but didn't understand the system well enough at the time to risk it.
Hope this helps someone in the future...
Richard
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