My holiday Rambler is no Holiday!!!!!!!!!

[shaneperch]

I was running my Holiday rambler yesterday . whilst running the engine I wanted to lower the jacks and the engine stalled and I had no electricity from the 12volt circuits no lights no radio no nothing. then I jumped the motorhome and it made the jumper cables really hot got it started again and then after 5 minutes it stalls and same thing again what could cause this I know the battery is weak but never had this problem before. what could cause this.

[DSDP_Don]

You're really wasting your time trying to determine an electrical issue if you don't have the house batteries installed and the others are weak or dead. You're just chasing your tail!

[YC_1]

The batteries you are jumping are probably so depleted that the jumper cables are trying to run a huge current into them. Better check them and get them charged up before going on. Your generator or shoreline should be charging them. Measure the voltage across them with one of those working.

Old sick batteries or trying to charge a bank of 6 batteries that are run down can put a huge load on an alternator and cause it to crater.

MAKE AND MODEL OF RV sure helps.

[JumboJet]

Almost sounds like a battery with a dead short.

[shaneperch]

Oh I see, I must have fried the alternator?? damn.

[wolfe10]

Generally, the jacks work off the house battery. If no house batteries, but wires still hooked up from alternator to house battery connections, it is possible that your alternator was WAY overloaded trying to supply the needed power for the jacks.

Start by getting your electrical system back to the way it should be and THEN start troubleshooting.

[shaneperch]

deleted,, double post

[shaneperch]

But the problem happened after using the jacks, I was trying to level the motorhome and the minute the jack started to dig in, the engine quite and there was no power anywhere on the dash radio quit and everything, then when I attempted to jump it the cables were hot and I waited a day and jumped it again and it was able to start and the cables didn't get hot. it ran for about a minute and then it suddenly quit and the cables were hot again. Before I tried to use the jacks it never done this before. If it is a bad alternator that would be awesome as I can rebuilt that. There are no house batteries as I need to get two . the ones that came with the motorhome were shot.

[RayChez]

Is this a gasoline coach or diesel? Sounds to me like you need some batteries.

But once you got it started the engine IF gas should have kept on running off the alternator. So that brings the alternator into question, which could mean it is not charging enough to charge the batteries and not good enough to keep the engine running.

[2bzy2c]

Yep. More than likely the alternator. As soon as you put an electrical load on the electrical system, there is not enough "juice" to run the engine, then the engine stalls.

[YC_1]

Model and yr?

Your alternator is not working.

Start the generator, hold the emergency start/aux start button down and let it charge the engine batteries at least tens minutes. Start the rv and leave the generator running and the aux start button engaged. It should run fine. If it does, your alternator is not charging.

[jmanatee]

how weak are the batteries? Try cleaning battery connections.