Best way to trace leisure battery wires to source?
Hi all,
Would really appreciate some help with the below.
We are new owners of a 1978 Dodge B300 Vanguard camper van. We recently ran into some electrical problems on the road and in my determination to isolate the problem, I disconnected all the wiring attached the the leisure (house) battery. In my haste I forgot to label the wires pos/neg!
I have a multimeter at hand.
Is there any way to sort/pair/test wires without tracing all the wires through the frame? The wiring is quite poor and it would be hell to rip everything out while we're on the road. I have attached a picture of my dilemma.
It also doesn't help that there seems to be more wires than appliances we know run off the house battery.
In the photo, I am holding three wires, there is a fat white one resting disconnected on top of the battery. And then hooked up to the battery is the plugin battery charger and what I believe to be the positive wire leading to the water pump and internal lights (3 squares around the cabin). When I plug in the battery charger the pump and lights work but the pump has a very funny humming sound that continues momentarily after we turn the tap off (never used to do this and sounds bad). Holding the fat white wire on the negative post stops this sound. The only reason I think the pump and lights work is because they are using the ground wire going through the charger and to the 120v socket. I could not get the pump/lights to work with the battery charger disconnected.
The only other appliances I know can run off the battery are the fridge (orange positive wire not pictured as we don't use the battery for the fridge and have never had it connected, and a non-appliance, the isolator).
Thanks so much!
Would really appreciate some help with the below.
We are new owners of a 1978 Dodge B300 Vanguard camper van. We recently ran into some electrical problems on the road and in my determination to isolate the problem, I disconnected all the wiring attached the the leisure (house) battery. In my haste I forgot to label the wires pos/neg!
I have a multimeter at hand.
Is there any way to sort/pair/test wires without tracing all the wires through the frame? The wiring is quite poor and it would be hell to rip everything out while we're on the road. I have attached a picture of my dilemma.
It also doesn't help that there seems to be more wires than appliances we know run off the house battery.
In the photo, I am holding three wires, there is a fat white one resting disconnected on top of the battery. And then hooked up to the battery is the plugin battery charger and what I believe to be the positive wire leading to the water pump and internal lights (3 squares around the cabin). When I plug in the battery charger the pump and lights work but the pump has a very funny humming sound that continues momentarily after we turn the tap off (never used to do this and sounds bad). Holding the fat white wire on the negative post stops this sound. The only reason I think the pump and lights work is because they are using the ground wire going through the charger and to the 120v socket. I could not get the pump/lights to work with the battery charger disconnected.
The only other appliances I know can run off the battery are the fridge (orange positive wire not pictured as we don't use the battery for the fridge and have never had it connected, and a non-appliance, the isolator).
Thanks so much!
