Destroyed my starter battery, replacement and thoughts?

[Transit-man-van]

Firstly which should I replace it with? Should it be exactly the same (connect 2007) or can I get different size? What is advised? I want to get going again asap so whatever is easiest.

Wow!!! I am just looking at batteries on halford and they are coming up at £250+!!!! I thought I saw batteries were only like £30-50 when I took a casual gaze not long ago. Are van batteries a different kettle of fish?

I don't know how it happened.

Well I do know what I did to make it happen but don't know why it caused it.

After having rigged up my dc-dc charger and people telling me that connecting the negative of starter to negative of leisure was a no-no and that I should instead connect to vehicle chasis I tried that this morning and when I then went to turn the ignition just...dead. Not the familiar chug chug chug of a limping battery just...nothing.

I went under the hood and checked with the multimeter and it showed no voltage at all!

I also tried giving it some charge with the mains charger and the needle would just swing wildly back and forth which never happened before. Then still no voltage on the meter or 0.5 and then back to 0.

[metalworker0]

You cant just destroy it just like that ...the only way is to over charge it, so much that it would be bubbling and steaming. or you discharged it very quickly... quicker than a battery tester would do ..again it would be steaming and melting cables.

or the last time you un-did post connectors ..somehow broke its contact internally with the rest of the battery ---cause they are made of weak lead.

or nothing to do with the batteries and its a connection to something fault.

Got my battery about this time A year back ..was a shop soiled one from TAYNA which is only 7 miles away from me - £30...i did price new ones up and they were in the region off £120

all the best.mark

[Transit-man-van]

You cant just destroy it just like that ...the only way is to over charge it, so much that it would be bubbling and steaming. or you discharged it very quickly... quicker than a battery tester would do ..again it would be steaming and melting cables.

or the last time you un-did post connectors ..somehow broke its contact internally with the rest of the battery ---cause they are made of weak lead.

or nothing to do with the batteries and its a connection to something fault.

Got my battery about this time A year back ..was a shop soiled one from TAYNA which is only 7 miles away from me - £30...i did price new ones up and they were in the region off £120

all the best.mark

After more mucking around it seems I have a short circuit!! Is this dangerous to be in the van now? I don't have any other means of shelter so am worried!!!

Is there a large ampage lying somewhere in my chasis?

I came to this conclusion since I have a jump starter which also has error codes. When I connected to battery it beeped and lit up for a short circuit or reverse polarity.

Since this happened right after connecting the negative wire from starter to the chasis by the driver's seat it would make more sense to be a short circuit right?

Also what I did was remove the positive and negative connections on the battery and put the jump starter cables back on and the error message went out and showed the normal operation indicators.

I also checked with multimeter with no connections and it shows then showed a HUGE voltage of 70-80 volts. What does this mean?

First is this dangerous to be in the van like this and second how to fix it?

[metalworker0]

70-80 volts. in your cars wiring means the problems with the inverter / charger ...and I don't know what else may be damaged PCM? cluster? radio?

all the best.mark

[metalworker0]

whilst doing this job ...you are probably better off joining a motor home forum (uk or european) where jobs like this are the norm and people there are very clued up ..can explain and draw you diagrams etc


all the best.mark

[dumper]

Are you sure that you have not contacted the main positive to the chassis the earth on the starter will be a larger black wire and go to the van battery and may have a smaller offshoot that goes to the van chassis it sounds like you have got the wires mixed up on the starter for the Sterling there is no need to connect to the starter motor just take the leads directly from the van battery.
On mine I never did any other wireing just a fused positive to it and a black earth on some setups you need an ignition feed from the ignition switch.

When I first set mine up I just did the wires from the batteries and it worked fine for two years until I found the the fuse box was showing signs of overheating but it didn’t start changing when the engine was started thinking there was a problem I wired up a ignition feed to it but it didn’t really need it I didn’t realise it had a slight delay in connecting so I didn’t need to wire in the ignition feed and that was five years ago.

[Chug]

yeah it sounds like you've got your cables mixed up and shorting somewhere, undo what you did and double check all polarities before reconnecting.

[Transit-man-van]

yeah it sounds like you've got your cables mixed up and shorting somewhere, undo what you did and double check all polarities before reconnecting.

It can't be because I didn't disconnect any of the existing starter battery wires and have since disconnected all the new ones for the dc-dc charger yet there is still nothing except a little crackle when attaching positive and negative and then no life when turning ignition and then the battery is drained to 0. Most confusing.

I even put the battery on charge for a couple of hours on main this morning and while it did reengage the central lock it did not have any dashboard lights.

Voltmeter only showed 11 volts though so thinking go with a new battery. This one was on its last legs anyway so not going to be a waste of money either way and then I can rule that out if still having issues.

[Transit-man-van]

You cant just destroy it just like that ...the only way is to over charge it, so much that it would be bubbling and steaming. or you discharged it very quickly... quicker than a battery tester would do ..again it would be steaming and melting cables.

or the last time you un-did post connectors ..somehow broke its contact internally with the rest of the battery ---cause they are made of weak lead.

or nothing to do with the batteries and its a connection to something fault.

Got my battery about this time A year back ..was a shop soiled one from TAYNA which is only 7 miles away from me - £30...i did price new ones up and they were in the region off £120

all the best.mark

Tayna look like a good bet but what number batteries will be compatible?

I put my reg in and it says 100 however my current battery is 092 and the selection they have to check if this is right upon putting number plate in is wrong but no way to change it!

Current battery: Bosch / s4 007 / 0 092 s04070 silver 72ah

I tried to look for a place which sells the same battery to make it easy but most places are shipping out of europe for some reason which I noticed is a trend for vehicle parts.

Can I get any '092' battery? I want to make this quick and simple as I want it asap and have extremely limited electric due to solar being awful right now.

Halfords show other batteries with different numbers that are shown after putting reg in again but I have no way to know if that is right or not as have no idea what the numbers mean and don't have the electric to have time to research it!

[metalworker0]

just had a look - Well the numbers on my battery are on the hidden side...would mean me doing some work, looking for tools etc to pull it out ..no time to do it today (dinner with brother) or tomorrow. (funeral)or Tuesday, (keel installation on my boat) come to that

all the best.mark

[Transit-man-van]

just had a look - Well the numbers on my battery are on the hidden side...would mean me doing some work, looking for tools etc to pull it out ..no time to do it today (dinner with brother) or tomorrow. (funeral)or Tuesday, (keel installation on my boat) come to that

all the best.mark

No worries. I got one today locally, a duracell, fitted fine and...it started! However...after idling for a minute or two I shut it off then started to smell an odd sweet smell which got more and more then I look to the left of the battery and there is black smoke bellowing out of the alternator!

So seems to have fried it somehow.

I disconnect the battery then try to repeat the steps again with my neighbour, who knows a bit about vehicles watching, and exactly the same thing. Worked fine while running, even revved for a bit while he looked under the hood. We thought it might have been an anomaly and all good now but then again as soon as I switch off the ignition smoke pours out of the alternator again!

I asked a couple of local mechanics to help but they are both booked for the next 2 weeks. The same neighbour indicated it is not a hard job to do one's self. What do you guys think?

I don't mind having a go myself,,,in for a penny in for a pound.

Would get the biggest one that would fit the van though to avoid it happening again! Though it might have just been old and on its way out anyway, like the battery. The van, even though it is 2007, did only have about 60k on the clock when I bought it, which I was told it 'nothing' for a diesel engine so maybe it was fried by and large by the little running I did with the 60a dc-dc charger?

[Transit-man-van]

Ok I am in the process of fitting a new 130a after the breakdown callout confirmed it to be that.

What do you all think about this comment in relation to me saying the 60a charger will be fine with my 120a- now 130a for the new one- alternator:

alternator that size should be fine for the bb1260.

You were told wrong. The 120 amp alternator , when new , has a maximum output at full speed. At engine idle speed it will be around 60 to 70%. That's about 80 amps if everything is in good condition.
The B2B will take near 70 amps and the van electrical will take at least 20 amps, more if the starter battery is in bad shape, so you are at or exceed the limit.
The 'bad' cable to the battery negative is an additional cause of your failures.

Also is it ok to just use the existing ground to chasis of the starter battery to ground all the negative leisure battery stuff since I have run a cable through from front to back anyway. If the starter negative connects to negative busbar doesn't that mean that it will all be ground to chasis via the starter battery negative already having a cable connected to the chasis? So doesn't that mean there is no need to make another one as most vanlifers advise in the habitation space? I am thinking no need to reinvent the wheel.

I am being told again this is forbidden due to bypassing a sensor the ford has but they are saying it applies to vans after 2012. As mine is 2007 is this point to be disregarded?

As I have pointed out before, you must use vehicle metal where there is a sensor on the battery negative cable. All Ford vehicles produced after around 2012 have this.
Screenshot_20241127-095433_Chrome~2.jpg
If your van pre dates this then the comment does nor apply. However due to the poor access to the battery negative and the need to add a dual connector to the post, its easier to use van metal. If you have already a negative cable through the bulkhead use the battery ground point.

[dumper]

I found it easier to connect from the van battery to the Sterling on the earth side you only have two connections and for the positive two extra for the inline fuse.
On my wiring for the camper side I have a heavy duty master switch to feed the fuse box so if something goes wrong I can turn everything off the earth side goes to a buzz bar in the battery compartment I’ve done this to keep it as simple as possible and not interfere with the van electric system if my van had the customer connection point on the side of the seatbox I would have used that.

[Transit-man-van]

I found it easier to connect from the van battery to the Sterling on the earth side you only have two connections and for the positive two extra for the inline fuse.
On my wiring for the camper side I have a heavy duty master switch to feed the fuse box so if something goes wrong I can turn everything off the earth side goes to a buzz bar in the battery compartment I’ve done this to keep it as simple as possible and not interfere with the van electric system if my van had the customer connection point on the side of the seatbox I would have used that.

Thanks.

That's interesting, so your van battery has no direct connection to the leisure battery at all? Only indirectly via the dc-dc charger? Of course it seems to have worked for you but I was in discussion with sterling support, who have been great in clearing things up for me and telling me to disregard the online experts who say to ground the charger to chasis, who told me that they specifically recommend you make a full circuit with wires between the batteries and charger.

Yours worked fine but they also told me my original wiring was actually correct! So I plan to do that again. I just want to know if I should ground to chasis or not for my other leisure equipment with an additional wire vs the existing one on the starter.

Does your 'buzz' bar connect to the metal chasis as a ground? Earth confuses things as earth means different in AC vs DC but I get that you mean negative in this case.

Yes I also have a cut off switch but since I had no busbar I tried to cram connections into their terminal and ran out of space for the new dc-dc charger circuit but now I have bought all the extra kit I will be able to tidy it up. I also bought an extra cutoff switch if I want to switch off the dc-dc charger at any point. Maybe in summer when it will be redundant.

[dumper]

No buzz bar screwed to wood