12v wiring 2000 Coleman Bayside

[cato35]

We will be doing our first dry camping this weekend and I have run across a problem with the 12v system.  I can only intermittently get the power inside the camper to come on.  I have rewired the ground and checked both my batteries.  I am concerned that I may have drilled into a wire when I replaced my battery box  a couple of months ago.

My question is how does the wiring run from the exterior battery box to the inside of the trailer.  All the wires run through the tongue, but where do the enter the camper?  At a minimum, I believe I need to replace the red wire coming from the battery.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

[wavery]

We will be doing our first dry camping this weekend and I have run across a problem with the 12v system.  I can only intermittently get the power inside the camper to come on.  I have rewired the ground and checked both my batteries.  I am concerned that I may have drilled into a wire when I replaced my battery box  a couple of months ago.

My question is how does the wiring run from the exterior battery box to the inside of the trailer.  All the wires run through the tongue, but where do the enter the camper?  At a minimum, I believe I need to replace the red wire coming from the battery.

Any suggestions are appreciated.

Red wire??? :confused:   HMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!

There should be a white wire that goes from the battery to a connector at the bottom side of the frame, that's the ground wire. You should find a solid copper wire (with no insulation) that goes up through the camper floor, just under the converter.

You should also find a black wire that goes up through the floor and into the converter. The black wire is your positive wire.

Not sure where a "Red" wire came from but a 9-year-old PU may have been altered by a previous owner.

BTW........

WELCOME TO PUT!!!!!

[tlhdoc]

First let me welcome to PUT!

Start at the power converter and follow the wires backward.  Do you have the Fleetwood/Coleman battery wire harness that connects to your battery on one end (2 wires  one black and one white), and has a small plastic connector on the other end.  The plastic connector connects to a matching plug on the trailer wiring on the tongue of the trailer?  This wire harness also has a self resetting circuit breaker on the positive wire.  In the origional wiring the black wire is the positive.  Good luck in tracking the problem down.

[coach]

Starting at the back of the converter is a good place to start.
The blue wires are 12v output, white is ground, black and red are 12v input from the battery!

Coleman 12v

[cato35]

I appreciate the all the help.  Thankfully the problem has been solved (just in time I might add)!!

I had both batteries checked on Monday and both were said to be good and fully charged.  I remained suspicious because of the problems I had been experiencing.  The other problem was that the original harness that connects to the battery had been rewired with a red wire going to the positive side and a black wire to the negative.  

In trying different things I managed to blow a fuse that I had not detected for at least a full day.

In the end, after purchasing a new battery charger with a much better display and feedback, I determined that one battery was DEAD and the other was having problems.  I purchased a new battery, reworked all the connections, replaced the bad fuse and now we have power.

I learned two lessons from this fiasco:
1) Don't believe your local auto parts store - their charger may be no better than yours

2) Check your fuses again and again.  It is easy to blow a fuse when connecting and disconnecting the battery and its connections.

Thanks again for the help.

We are on our way to the races (BURR)!

[coach]

Good to hear you straighten things out.   :-()

If you disconnect the wires at the battery, remember which is which!
Soon there will be more than one thread - I can't remember, I disconnected for the winter, or I just blew a fuse".

My PU uses red and white for DC, B&W for AC, I do believe the TT 'standard' is black for positive and white for negative.

A test light and/or a muti meter come in handy tracing bad/weak/dirty connections.

[wavery]

Positive lead failure, from the battery to the converter, seems to be rather common on PUs for some reason. A previous owner may have replaced that wire and used a red wire because it was handy. That trailer originally came with a black wire to the positive post on the battery.

Glad that you resolved the issue. Happy camping..... :-()

[tlhdoc]

Glad you were able to get the problem figured out before your trip.  Have a good time.