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Pictures of Battery Replacement
Pictures of replacing the batteries in my 1995/96 Prevost XL
I posted this in other forums but thought I should share it here as well. You all have been so helpful to me already so I hope this might be of help to somebody here.
I replaced the starting batteries in my 1995/96 Prevost XL. I received a bunch of help on different forums and I wanted to pass along a description and a few pictures to help others. I am not mechanically inclined and can not tackle most major tasks so if you are in the same boat, take courage. If we are going to own these buses on a budget we must learn to work on a few things. I am living proof that there is hope!
I refer to my bus as a 1995/96 because it is a 1995 Prevost with the conversion completed and the whole thing titled in 1996. I have learned when talking to Prevost to refer to it as a 95 and when discussing the conversion with Vantare owners it is a 96.
In November my batteries were noticeably weakened so I began to make plans to replace them. They were over five years old according to the stickers on them so I figured it was about time. This bus requires four 31 group batteries.
After gathering all the facts and advice I could I jumped in last week and replaced the batteries.
All went well and it cranked beautifully when I was finished. I breathed a sigh of relief and thanked God for his help!
I started by disconnecting the shore power and turning off the inverters.
There are four batteries so I numbered the posts 1-8 and marked each wire with a corresponding number as I took it off. Several posts had four wires and all but one had two or more wires. By labeling each wire I wanted to make sure I didn’t mix any up. Even with every wire marked clearly it could have easily been confusing. I would never have wired this up correctly without labeling and detailed notes.
I removed the negative from the first battery and then the positive and then removed the battery. I taped the end of each lead to prevent any sparking. It wasn’t long before all the batteries were removed.
One of them was reading 10.8 volts when I took it out so it was probably the culprit.
The empty battery compartment before I cleaned the area.
I cleaned each lead as I put it on and applied generous amounts of dielectric grease to everything. I installed one battery at a time and put the brace back in place.
After the bus cranked and I was through rejoicing I put the cover and trickle charg (I have since put new mounting bolts on the cover and cleaned it up but this picture was before that.)er back on and the job was finished.
I did not spray any of the red coating on the battery posts because I have not sorted through the conflicting opinions on it yet. Do you use it or recommend it?
I’m thankful for all of the advice I received on this little project.
I hope the pictures and description help somebody else.
Have a blessed day…
DKO
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9 Replies
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I did the same project last week, and did it the same as you did, ( with exception of disconecting the equaliser groung before disconecting anything else) with the same results that you had. All is good.
A second look at the pictures lead me to believe that you used 3 different brands of batteries.
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You disconnected the ground on the equalizer? It was never mentioned and I never thought of it. It makes sense though.
DKO
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I noticed DKO mentioned turning off shore power and inverters. It may have been unnecessary because chassis and house batteries should not be connected in any way with the possible exception of a provision to join the two sets of batteries via a relay or switch to aid in starting the coach if required. That way DKO could be watching the big game on the entertainment center while he was working.
Actually even though it may not have been necessary he made a wise choice by placing safety first. A person wise on these buses once showed me how it was always best to verify all electrical sources of power are dead when working on any part of the electrical system. This cautionary advice he gave me is doubled when dealing with inverters.
The installation looks real nice and clean.
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Good job….
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DKO
I just went through this myself from a little different perspective. I am converting an over the road bus to a motorhome. On the OTR bus, the batteries are in the 4th bay, so I had to move them to the engine compartment with the voltage regulator, several breakers and rerun about 100′ of new wire to put it all back together. Rather than number everything, I took pictures, thinking I could work from them,. Huge mistake!!! I took the pics but didn’t look at them before I dismantled everything. I got it all dismantled, moved and was ready to rewire. Pulled out the trusty camera, yup there were the pics but because the camera was not made to take closeup pics, the pics were all blurry and you could not see anything. I called out for help and Jon and Bob on this forum came to my rescue with wiring diagrams. I followed them, and after some initial tweeking I had to do, the system is back in and working great. I used a similar numbering system so when I have to do it again, it won’t be nearly as difficult a problem. I numbered each battery from 1 to 4, then attached an N or P to it and then wrote those on each cable. For example, you may have a cable that on one end says 1P and the other is 3P. That cable runs from the positive pole of battery 1 to the positive pole of battery 3. I used white electrical tape as the label and wrote on it with a sharpie then covered the elecrical tape with clear shrink wrap. I used this system to label all the cables, including the ones from the inverters, the chassis ground, etc. With the shrink wrap covering everything, the numbers should stay intact and visible for years to come.
Rob
91 Prevost XL 40 “Olga”
Missouri
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DKO
I just went through this myself from a little different perspective. I am converting an over the road bus to a motorhome. On the OTR bus, the batteries are in the 4th bay, so I had to move them to the engine compartment with the voltage regulator, several breakers and rerun about 100′ of new wire to put it all back together. Rather than number everything, I took pictures, thinking I could work from them,. Huge mistake!!! I took the pics but didn’t look at them before I dismantled everything. I got it all dismantled, moved and was ready to rewire. Pulled out the trusty camera, yup there were the pics but because the camera was not made to take closeup pics, the pics were all blurry and you could not see anything. I called out for help and Jon and Bob on this forum came to my rescue with wiring diagrams. I followed them, and after some initial tweeking I had to do, the system is back in and working great. I used a similar numbering system so when I have to do it again, it won’t be nearly as difficult a problem. I numbered each battery from 1 to 4, then attached an N or P to it and then wrote those on each cable. For example, you may have a cable that on one end says 1P and the other is 3P. That cable runs from the positive pole of battery 1 to the positive pole of battery 3. I used white electrical tape as the label and wrote on it with a sharpie then covered the elecrical tape with clear shrink wrap. I used this system to label all the cables, including the ones from the inverters, the chassis ground, etc. With the shrink wrap covering everything, the numbers should stay intact and visible for years to come.
Rob
91 Prevost XL 40 “Olga”
Missouri
I read your thread about that. The picture part of it would be funny if it hadn’t cause so mucn trouble. I glad you got it all worked out.
I used white electrical tape and a sharpie for my labels too but didn’t know how to protect them for future use. Thanks for the tip. I was going to use number labels like an eletctrician uses in a control panel but could not find any on the spur of the moment. I thought an auto parts store would have them but I am sure that an electrical supply house would.
DKO.
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Where do you get “clear shrink warp”?
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Hi Guys
The sticky numbers you’re looking for are available at Lowes right in the same section as the electrical tools, wrenches. The clear heat shrink I had to order off the web. 4′ was $8 delivered to my home, could get it at a local electric house but they wanted to sell me 100′ for $25, didn’t need even 4′ but certainly didn’t need 100′. Be sure to order 3/4″ so it fits over the lugs easily, if it is 3M, it shrinks by 75% so should give a snug fit. If not 3M, ask what the shrink rate is becasue many are less than 50%.
Rob
91 Prevost XL40
Missouri
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Thanks. I should have thought of Lowe’s…
DKO
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