RV battery hookup.

[Seth Caron]

In a fit of “I know what I’m doing” I removed all the batteries out of my 85 Pace Arrow. I thought they were all bad, turns out only one was bad, the starting battery. I need to move the RV from my driveway so work can get done on my house and I just want to start the engine not power the house. Can I hook everything up to one battery just to get it started or do I need to wire the batteries back in?

[postman]

A charged batt and jumper cables, u should b good

[Seth Caron]

Right, but right now there’s no batteries and a bunch of positive and negative wires that used to go to three. Can I hook all those up to one battery and crank the engine?

[Terry H]

You wrote that all you wish to do for now is start the engine.

Based on a known good start battery:

Locate your starter. Trace the heavy (battery) wire from the starter to your battery location. Connect that wire to the + terminal of your  good battery. Always connect the + first and disconnect the - first.

Now from the battery box locate your - (ground) wire. It will go from the battery to the frame or the engine. Generally the battery clamp for the ground has a smaller diameter than the positive.

Connect this to the - terminal on the battery. Ensure that the frame/engine connection is clean and tight. Poor ground is generally the cause of electrical issues.

Start your engine, and best of luck.

[postman]

Seth, hire somebody.

[Seth Caron]

Good advice. Thanks.

[Daniel Long]

Yeesh. It's all about getting to the source. If you can trace that heavy gauge positive to the starter, you can also find the ground close by. Most motorhomes have what's called a chassis battery to run the engine and coach battery (or battery bank) somewhere else that get charged up and runs the stuff in the RV.

[Seth Caron]

I’ll try crawling under it tomorrow. If that doesn’t work I’ll bring in a guy to undo my mess