RHUGGETT

I live in snow country and store my motorhome outdoors in the winter. I never take the batteries out for storage. I have found that the batteries will drain down if left for a long time. In my last coach (and my present one) I installed battery disconnects which made a BIG difference. I usually start the main engine (gas) once a month as well as the generator. Both of them will start up very easily when the batteries have been disconnected for the month. They have almost at full power when turned back on even if the temperature sometimes drop close to 0 F. I usually plug in a couple of electric heaters to put a load on the gunny since it makes no sense to try the ACs. It's a little difficult to drive out of the storage area (and possibly a little dangerous, so I will hod the foot brakes on and run the transmission through all shift positions to move the fluids. I have never had any engine, generator or transmission problems with any of my motorhome in 40 years. I had my last coach for 20 years. Hope this helps.

Thank you guys for all the information. I'm sure it is going to help me solve this problem. I really think that the problem has developed from the electrical technician who had worked on the original problem with the parking lights. Since I very rarely drive late in the day, I only recently discovered the problem when I eventually did a drive at night. The motorhome is parked in a storage lot for the winter, but when I go to run it I will definitely see if I can check out the wires. I am thinking that I will get a couple or relays and insert them into the circuit as you suggested. I will let you know how thing work out. The wiring for these lights is very basic. with wires just connected on the switch terminals with push on terminals and they look like they have been mixed up. Thanks again for taking your time to help me out. R Huggett

I had an electrical service company repair a short circuit in the parking lights 2 years ago and they said at that time that I should replace the head light switch, but they didn't have one in stock. They solved the short circuit and ordered a new switch for me. When this problem came up, I went to install the switch, and I noticed that a couple of the wires near the switch looked like they had overheated as there was a few areas where the insulation had melted a bit. I cut out these damaged bits and joined on some new pieces of wire. I replaced the switch, but it made no difference. This switch is a direct replacement for the old switch. It is a rocker type switch that has 6 terminals on the rear. There are 3 terminals on the left and 3 terminals on the right. I did a thorough test with my ohmmeter and there was no connection between any of the terminals on the left side and the terminals on the right side. It was just like there were two switches in one. If a hot wire is hooked up to the center terminal on the left set of terminals, and the switch is rocked down, then there is a connection with the upper terminal on the left side. If the rocker switch is rocked up to the top, then there is a connection to the lower terminal on the left side. There is no connection to any of the terminals on the right side. The same connections are on the right side, but there are no connections between the left and right sides. There is only one hot power wire connected to the center terminal on the left side, and nothing to the center terminal on the right side. when the switch is pushed down for the parking lights, there are wires secured to both of the upper terminals with a jumper wire connecting them and then another jumper going to the variable switch for the dash lights. I don't know why they used both of the upper terminal since there is no power on the right side. They could have just bundled them together onto the left terminal. All the parking lights work in this situation. When the switch is rocked up for the headlights, there are no headlights turned on and the parking lights are also off. Although the light do not light up, there is 12 volts showing at the lower left terminal (as there should be). Again, there are wires connected to both of the lower terminals. Another puzzle here is that there is a low voltage of 8 volts showing on the lower right terminal and its wire even though there is no power supplied to it's center terminal, there must be some feedback from somewhere. All these wires look to be too light to be powering the headlights directly. I don't know if the wires were messed up when they repaired the short in the parking lights, but something just does not seem to be right. When we are camping, we usually stop for the day by 3 o'clock, so I don't think that we ever drove when the headlights were required. But a couple of weeks ago, I did drive much later and I then found out that the lights didn't work when I needed them. I guess I will have to try and trace the wires from the switch and/or the headlights to try and find the problems. Thanks for your help.

I have a 93 class A Rockwood Driftwood motorhome on a 92 Chevrolet chassis. The headlights work for the daytime running lights, and the light switch will turn on the parking lights, but when I flip the light switch to the headlight position, there are neither headlights or parking lights. I replaced the light switch with no improvement. The wiring on the switch looks very suspect to me, but I don't know. Can anyone tell me where each of the colored wires should be secured on the switch contacts? Can anyone tell me if there are relays for these headlights or where they may be located? Does anyone know where I might be able to obtain a wiring diagram for the headlights? I would appreciate any help you can give me.