loss of power

[satelliteman]

I have a 1998 Forest River. We are having trouble with the power at the dash. It will start and run fine. Headlights work,turn signals work fan works radio all good. But no power to the dash lights or power getting back to the battery. Have no power to the jacks. Have checked all the fuses that I can find. If I start it up and put it in gear and then turn on the parking break the light does turn on. Where do I go next?

[Jim]

I had a no power/no operation from a '94 Power Gear jack system occasionally and it turned out to be a corroded wire had broken off a hydraulic solenoid at the hydraulic manifold. The warning was that 'sometimes' it wouldn't operate and I'd mess around with stuff like the wiring, gear shift, plug/unplug connectors. But usually it would come back by itself...due to vibration it turned out. The second time it happened I recognised the symptoms immediately and found my solder job had failed. Did it up right that time...

[satelliteman]

yes the break must be on but I have no power to the system

[doxiemom11]

Campers next to us had no power to jacks and it was a loose wire connection under the dash. Don't know if they had other stuff not working right or not.

Also - do you have to have your emergency brake on for jacks to operate? Our requires this.

[satelliteman]

After some more looking will go back to the ignition tomorrow. Harvey is raining on us pretty good for the last 5 hours, But hope to go back out in the morning. Is there an easy way to check the ignition with out taking it out? Not sure it is working in the on position.

[CA_Traveler]

OK, so what does this mean?

"or power getting back to the battery. Have no power to the jacks."

Are both batteries being charged and you have 2 problems?

1. Dash lights

2. Jacks

If the power for the jack controls comes from the dash then you might have one problem.

[Jim]

Problem you're describing could also be a bad ground up underneath the dash somewhere. The items that are still working, all have their own ground leads so check under the dash for a broken ground lead. If there's a metal frame up under there, run a temp ground wire to a known good ground and see what happens.

[ScottG]

satelliteman wrote:
connections are good Have used di-electric grease since we got it up in Illinois

And that might be your problem.
Make sure everything is CLEAN and dry and functioning.
Then if you must, slather DG all over it.

[satelliteman]

Engine running I have 13.5 volts at isolator and am having no trouble with house battery. And have checked the ignition. all of that looks good

[CA_Traveler]

Dash lights should be on the chassis battery so that suggests a second problem.

My first suspicion for the house battery would be the battery isolator is not working or perhaps you have a tripped CB on the wire to the battery. You could have a corroded connection inside a lug that is clamped onto the wire. Di-electric grease won't help there. With the engine running, headlights on and a voltmeter you should see 13.2V+ at the isolator input and both outputs and then test the voltage back to the battery. Shore and solar off for this testing.

[rgatijnet1]

How about a defective ignition switch or a bad connection to the ignition switch? It might be in the connector at the base of the steering column as well that connects all of the wires coming out of your steering column to the rest of the coach.

[satelliteman]

connections are good Have used di-electric grease since we got it up in Illinois

[SidecarFlip]

Being a 1998 vintage and seeing as you live in Nashville where it's damp, I bet you have a multitude of high resistance corroded connections. Time to clean all of them and apply di-electric grease to prevent further corrosion.