Fiat Ducato Posted October 30, 2016 Share Posted October 30, 2016 Why is it every second hand motorhome or camper I buy, the wiring looms, control panels and power management and distribution units have been butchered by novice and amateur wanna be motor electricians. Think the one I have now as been butchered the worse, wires connected together with tape and clip on connectors, right bodge job, on closer inspection it looks like several of the terminals on the push on (mate n Lok) style electrical connector as blown and melted so they have by passed them by connecting 2 wires to the same terminal. I have gone through everything with a fine tooth comb well electrical tester, discovered which cable is for what and clearly labeled them, then removed the main supply unit from the van to service on my bench. Will dismantle and re-solder a new connector block in place of the old burnt out one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keninpalamos Posted October 31, 2016 Share Posted October 31, 2016 This is one I done earlier Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RogerThat Posted October 31, 2016 Share Posted October 31, 2016 Whoa 8-) That looks like the same death-trap meter-bypass wiring job I've seen on many a rented house that's been turned in to a cannabis farm (!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulletguy Posted October 31, 2016 Share Posted October 31, 2016 Fiat Ducato - 2016-10-30 9:49 AM Why is it every second hand motorhome or camper I buy, the wiring looms, control panels and power management and distribution units have been butchered by novice and amateur wanna be motor electricians. Though that type of bodge is usually attributed to the type you mention it's not always the case. I removed my rear lens units recently to fit a new bulb and was astonished to find one had the wiring hacked into and reconnected with scotch locks. My first thought was what d**khead cuts the wires when removal is simply by unclipping the lens unit? When i took a closer look at the fly lead wiring.....it went off to the tow-bar! As i suspect the bar would have been professionally fitted at some time, i can only assume whoever fitted that took the easy quick option out by scotch locking into the wiring there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aandncaravan Posted October 31, 2016 Share Posted October 31, 2016 I have seen much worse!! Today was a good example, so bad the Elektroblock had been really badly burned, literally. I will try and post pictures tomorrow. Not only were there wiring mods, but it had an 8 year old 225Ah Gel battery paired with two NEW Numax 31's (110Ah) Wet batteries. All connected together. A 445Ah habitation bank and a 95Ah Starter being looked after by an 18amp charger!! All chargers were optimised for 'Wet' batteries. The Solar regulator has been fitted up near the roof in the centre of what is a long van when the batteries are in the Garage at the back. Not measured the voltage drop but efficiencey must be 25% down on what it could be? Wiring badly melted and proving a nightmare to fault find. Hopefully fix it tomorrow, but struggling, it is so bad. We normally wouldn't take something like this on, and now wish I really, really had not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiat Ducato Posted November 1, 2016 Author Share Posted November 1, 2016 So it's not just me then, it's a common problem it seems, I just wish if people are not competent enough or can't be bothered to at least take the time to do some research into what they are doing. They would just leave it be and get a professional in. Like your comment about the bodge wiring in rented properties for a cannabis farm lol One good thing for this motorhome is that the electric step actually works fine, although even works with the engine going, and the fridge actually works like it's suppose to do, on 12v with the engine running, off when you turn the engine off. My last motorhome, fridge never worked on 12v due to fuses and relays blown, poor wiring etc and never worked on gas die to a filthy blocked jet. Oh and awning light was fitted on the wrong side of the vehicle for some strange reason, and the switch was up in the bed area above the cab, sometimes we left it on by mistake and would forget and be driving along thinking the moon is bright tonight, until I realised what it was. Quickly sorted that so ran off the same relay as fridge, but opposite way round, on with engine stopped, off with engine started. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles Posted November 1, 2016 Share Posted November 1, 2016 Most professionals are bodgers nowadays in my experience. If it's your own van you do a good job but the pro's don't give a frying cook. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John52 Posted November 1, 2016 Share Posted November 1, 2016 You can see why dealers like factory standard vans and don't like taking in part exchanges with accessories 'fitted' At least the reputable dealers who guarantee the vans they sell, accessories and all. Yet people still expect accesories to add to the trade in value. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John52 Posted November 1, 2016 Share Posted November 1, 2016 Must admit I'm not proud of the wiring in my van :$ So many things been added and taken off :$ Works fine for me because I know what everything is. But anybody who took it over would be left scratching their head :-S Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulletguy Posted November 1, 2016 Share Posted November 1, 2016 aandncaravan - 2016-10-31 11:08 PM I have seen much worse!! Wiring badly melted and proving a nightmare to fault find. Hopefully fix it tomorrow, but struggling, it is so bad. We normally wouldn't take something like this on, and now wish I really, really had not. When i had my van in for MOT earlier this year it came at the time i'd broken my leg so the Garage i use came and picked it up. I gave them a couple of other jobs to make it worth their while, one of which was to put that wiring right, but when i described it to them they didn't want to know for the reasons you've stated! As one of the mechanics said, anything scotch locked is a disaster and had the job been done properly it should have been taken off the main wiring, but whoever had fitted the tow bar saved time and a few pennies by butchering the wiring in the rear lens unit. John52 - 2016-11-01 11:48 AM You can see why dealers like factory standard vans and don't like taking in part exchanges with accessories 'fitted' At least the reputable dealers who guarantee the vans they sell, accessories and all. Yet people still expect accesories to add to the trade in value. To a point i agree with you John but if there's a chance of securing £50k sale of a new van, the majority wouldn't be put off! Also, how many used vans "lose" various accessories which are part of the van left in good faith by the previous owner? The original crockery used by A/S had been removed by a dealer from my van and i know that as fact as i traced the owner who'd bought it from the dealer concerned but they didn't know there should have been a crockery set in. Also one of the curtains had been taken out. Small matters, but dealers will do this sort of thing in order to secure a sale on another used van of the same model. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aandncaravan Posted November 2, 2016 Share Posted November 2, 2016 It's all working again after a lot of effort on our part. We didn't get it fixed yesterday, but it was finally fixed this afternoon. I will think really carefully before taking on another like this. To perform any repairs on wiring when it is standard, isn't too bad. But when you have a melted mess and you don't know what has been added/changed it takes a long time to trace and work out. Photo published below of the burnt unit we took out. It really has burned badly. Inside the box it has a hole burnt right through the Fibreglass PCB about 30mm x 25mm. We obviously can't be sure about the reason for the failure as the damage is so bad any post mortem would be part guess work. But that huge battery bank would have been drawing a lot of Alternator current, a 445Ah battery bank is almost unbelievable. Shows what a good idea it is to have a Fire Extinguisher handy? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John52 Posted November 2, 2016 Share Posted November 2, 2016 Bulletguy - 2016-11-01 2:18 PM As one of the mechanics said, anything scotch locked is a disaster. I learned that the hard way years ago. I used scotchlock connectors on my first van which were OK for a year or two before starting to give only an intermittent connection - the most time consuming type of fault to trace. It wasn't so bad for me being my own van because I went back over them all and replaced the scotchlock connectors for cheeseblock ones. Hours of wasted work that would have been far worse on a van sold by a dealer that had to be returned by a dissatisfied owner and hours of expensive workshop time spent tracing the faults that were probably working every time the owner returned them. These are the sort of accesories 'fitted' that I expect Dealers to prefer to avoid, not crockery etc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John52 Posted November 2, 2016 Share Posted November 2, 2016 aandncaravan - 2016-11-02 4:55 PM It's all working again after a lot of effort on our part. We didn't get it fixed yesterday, but it was finally fixed this afternoon. I will think really carefully before taking on another like this. To perform any repairs on wiring when it is standard, isn't too bad. But when you have a melted mess and you don't know what has been added/changed it takes a long time to trace and work out. Photo published below of the burnt unit we took out. It really has burned badly. Inside the box it has a hole burnt right through the Fibreglass PCB about 30mm x 25mm. We obviously can't be sure about the reason for the failure as the damage is so bad any post mortem would be part guess work. But that huge battery bank would have been drawing a lot of Alternator current, a 445Ah battery bank is almost unbelievable. Shows what a good idea it is to have a Fire Extinguisher handy? In the time you spend on a job like that you could have done a major overhaul, or several full services, that would have put a lot more money in the till :-S Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aandncaravan Posted November 2, 2016 Share Posted November 2, 2016 In the time you spend on a job like that you could have done a major overhaul, or several full services, that would have put a lot more money in the till :-S How right you are!! Despite the time spent, we charged just £150 labour, when the owner said he was expecting a Dealer style £1,000 bill. Maybe that is why he gave a £50 tip? To be fair I didn't work full days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aandncaravan Posted November 2, 2016 Share Posted November 2, 2016 Another good example below - Apparently when this Burstner Reich e-Box first failed to power on, a major Motorhome Dealer powered the wiring to the consumers (lights, fridge, heating, etc.) directly from the battery, bypassing the dead LCD display and all the power control/distribution. You can see in the photo the 'add on' fuses in the new wiring and the tacked on relay. As far as bodged wiring goes, it isn't too bad, just the concept of bypassing the controller in it's entirety?? Initially we turned down the job below, but now reconsidering. A close study of the Photo now looks like it might not be too bad to undo the bodging and then repair the e-Box. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bulletguy Posted November 2, 2016 Share Posted November 2, 2016 aandncaravan - 2016-11-02 11:06 PM Another good example below - Apparently when this Burstner Reich e-Box first failed to power on, a major Motorhome Dealer powered the wiring to the consumers (lights, fridge, heating, etc.) directly from the battery, bypassing the dead LCD display and all the power control/distribution. You can see in the photo the 'add on' fuses in the new wiring and the tacked on relay. As far as bodged wiring goes, it isn't too bad, just the concept of bypassing the controller in it's entirety?? Initially we turned down the job below, but now reconsidering. A close study of the Photo now looks like it might not be too bad to undo the bodging and then repair the e-Box. To the untrained eye that looks reasonably ok but bypassing and adding fuses reminded me of a job i had done by a local auto-electrician when my fridge 12v electrics packed up. I found a fuse had blown but so badly it had 'welded' itself into the block! Try as hard as i could, i just could not budge it so took the van over to an auto-electrician and left it with him. I picked it up the following day and he told me, "you won't have the same problem again...i've fitted a new fuse". So i was surprised when a few months later ALL my internal 12v went!! When i looked at the fuse i saw not only had he by-passed it, but stuck in a strip fuse rated at 60amp!! What i was more surprised at though was this guy has a good reputation as an auto-electrician. I still like to believe he is as he openly admits he doesn't normally work on anything mh/camper related. This time i took the van to Spinneys where i knew i would be paying top money but at least get it done right. They ripped out the old block and replaced with a new one plus new fuses and i was back up and running on full 12v electrics. Cost me £120 though! 8-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cap44 Posted November 3, 2016 Share Posted November 3, 2016 Sorry to steal the thread but i have sent aandncaravan services an e-mail re work for me on my Chausson and am yet to receive a reply. I am only 10 miles from him and would like to give him the opportunity to take some cash from me!!!!!!!!! Cheers Clive Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aandncaravan Posted November 3, 2016 Share Posted November 3, 2016 Hello Clive, sorry I have checked emails and there is nothing from a Clive with a Chausson, so I guess this has been missed so may I ask you to send it again? The 'Form' on the Contact Us page doesn't work well with some Browsers, like Firefox, so suggest you use the email address at the bottom of the Home page?. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiat Ducato Posted November 4, 2016 Author Share Posted November 4, 2016 Started the job of sorting out the bodge wiring to my charger etc. First I cut out all the awful splicing in covered with tape, scotch blok connectors, choc blocks etc. Then went through everything identifying which cable does what and labelled all the cables. But as you can see by these pics of the work I've got ahead of me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiat Ducato Posted November 4, 2016 Author Share Posted November 4, 2016 The last 4 pics are after I've removed the burnt out connector blocks, cleaned up ready to try and re-solder new connector blocks in place. As you can see there is some damage around one of the holes for soldering the connector pins. Might be too damaged to repair. Trouble is new ones, cheapest I've found is £185 and to have this one repaired professionally with postage cost etc your looking at at least £50 I would say but more like £80 - £90 I should think. New 12 terminal mate - n - lok connector block £6, new 6 way multi connector block £1.50, so fingers crossed if all works, then that's a massive saving and been me, a perfectionist, I know the work will be spot on ans put together 100% as per specifications. I have already stripped out 4mm twin house cable, and other bad wiring and tested everything with a multi-meter and labelled everything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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