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Topic: U300 Grand Villa Starter Battery Pictures? (Read 1877 times) previous topic - next topic

U300 Grand Villa Starter Battery Pictures?

Anyone have pictures of the factory starter battery setup on a '90s U300 Grand Villa?

Currently I have a single 8D starter battery, but want to use that place in the frame for a third house battery. There are two other places in the frame where 3 Group 34 batteries could go (maybe - need to measure). Would like to see how it looked from the factory.

Thanks in advance!

Re: U300 Grand Villa Starter Battery Pictures?

Reply #1 –
Mine are Three across the rear of the engine compartment, in front of the rear bumper. (3 x 34's) hooked in parallel. I will get a picture later this am.  ^.^d

Re: U300 Grand Villa Starter Battery Pictures?

Reply #2 –
Ours are also three across the back. I replaced the 34 series with 31 series as previously posted. It requires building a new tray. The cost for 34 or 31 will be about $300 at Autozone or other suppliers with 10 percent discount for the quantity. I did turn the 31 series around as the positive was too close to the hydraulic tank.

Here is my previous post: How to install group 31 batteries in your coach

Pierce

Re: U300 Grand Villa Starter Battery Pictures?

Reply #3 –
Thanks Pierce! Do you also have a third 8D for the house bank in the engine compartment? There are a set of disconnected battery cables in mine that are tied to the house bank.

Re: U300 Grand Villa Starter Battery Pictures?

Reply #4 –
Chip,

I know your coach has a different battery setup than ours, but what do you see when you open the small storage bay doors behind the rear wheels on each side?  On our coach, on the driver side I have the two 8D house batteries.  On the other side, I have the rack that holds my start battery.  I am using a single 8D for a start battery and it fits perfect in the passenger side rack.

If your start batteries are currently mounted across the rear of the engine compartment in front of the bumper, you might have a empty battery rack in the passenger side bay behind the rear wheels.  If so, that could be the place to fit a third 8D house battery.

Re: U300 Grand Villa Starter Battery Pictures?

Reply #5 –
Quote from: Chip7 –
Thanks Pierce! Do you also have a third 8D for the house bank in the engine compartment? There are a set of disconnected battery cables in mine that are tied to the house bank.
Quote from: Chip7 –
Thanks Pierce! Do you also have a third 8D for the house bank in the engine compartment? There are a set of disconnected battery cables in mine that are tied to the house bank.
No, your 40 footer has a different battery layout compared to our 36 footer. Ours came with two dead 8D batteries in the driver's side open battery compartment close to the rear wheels. I modified it to take the 6 solar batteries we have now. The racks are one ab ove the other.

Ken and others have 40 foot U300 so they would be the ones to compare your layout to and Chuck's U280 will probably be like yours too.

Pierce

Re: U300 Grand Villa Starter Battery Pictures?

Reply #6 –
Chip: This is the battery bay on our 1990 40ft GV. Start battery is the one on the far left. On my future project I plan to put the start battery on a new rack above the resonator ( plenty of room ) and put another 8D for the house. Going to do that same time I put up new , more efficient solar panels.

Chip: For some reason I can't get the pics to link up to this post. If you send me your email i'll send them direct.
Steve

Re: U300 Grand Villa Starter Battery Pictures?

Reply #7 –
Quote
Anyone have pictures of the factory starter battery setup on a '90s U300 Grand Villa?
Here's one of our 95 40' 300. Must have just installed new batteries when this was taken.
jor

Re: U300 Grand Villa Starter Battery Pictures?

Reply #8 –
I've also have had a problem uploading photos today. Anyone else? I tried a couple of different browsers.

Pierce

Re: U300 Grand Villa Starter Battery Pictures?

Reply #9 –
I found some battery photos in my post regarding my 91 U300 Grand Villa. Hope it helps





you can clearly see how the cables are connected.

Re: U300 Grand Villa Starter Battery Pictures?

Reply #10 –
Our 1993 40' U300 has three start batteries just forward of the rear bumper. They are wired in parallel by two cables, and then the entine cables attach to those. The house batteries are on the driver's side. They are two 8D batteries, one above the other, and also wired in parallel.

Re: U300 Grand Villa Starter Battery Pictures?

Reply #11 –
They better be in parallel. :)  :)  :) 36 volts would sure cure slow cranking.

Pierce

Re: U300 Grand Villa Starter Battery Pictures?

Reply #12 –
Battery on the left is the engine battery. Battery on the middle and right are house battery.

You can start engine with just the battery on the left.

The wire gauge is 000.

Re: U300 Grand Villa Starter Battery Pictures?

Reply #13 –
Quote from: Running Odometer –
Battery on the left is the engine battery. Battery on the middle and right are house battery.
You can start engine with just the battery on the left.The wire gauge is 000.
You can't start a Detroit 2 cycle reliably with one 8D and altitude and winter is a no go. We had to use two 8Ds on the fire dept with our Detroits. And that's at sea level in SoCal.  That's why Foretravel put three 34 series in a U300 as OEM.

Three good 34 series batteries will total about 2400 CCA but for about the same $$, I went with 31 series totaling 2850 CCA

You can never have too many CCA as with age, poor winter storage maintenance, etc., those CCA will be less.

Pierce

Re: U300 Grand Villa Starter Battery Pictures?

Reply #14 –
You sure can start a Detroit with one start battery, I use one 1400 cc napa battery and it has worked for me for 5 years at alot of different elevations.

Re: U300 Grand Villa Starter Battery Pictures?

Reply #15 –
Andy,

Do you ever use the boost switch?

P

Re: U300 Grand Villa Starter Battery Pictures?

Reply #16 –
Only when it's below 50 degrees, and I try not to start it without the block heater on for at least three hrs.

Re: U300 Grand Villa Starter Battery Pictures?

Reply #17 –
Pretty sure I'm wired up like Andy. ( pic attached ). Start battery is the one on the left side. Will be honest do not know the CCA. Batteries were replaced day I got the coach. Great story for another time. We were at William Kent Campground Tahoe, nighttime temps high 30's. There a week, no block heater, hit the start for about 10 seconds a she fired off. Ran real rough and laid down quite the smoke screen for about 30 seconds but evened out and away we went. Never have used the combiner switch, at least to start the coach.

Re: U300 Grand Villa Starter Battery Pictures?

Reply #18 –
Quote from: Andy 2 –
Only when it's below 50 degrees, and I try not to start it without the block heater on for at least three hrs.
Probably the difference as we don't have a block heater available when dry camping and it's frequently freezing overnight. I don't use the boost switch but it usually takes several attempts. If it's cold enough, I use ether. Usually a cylinder will fire right away but not enough to keep running. I usually repeat this a few times and then it produces a huge cloud of smoke before the last cylinder fires and the smoke clears. This is normally at June Lake or somewhere in the Sierras and at 8000 feet.  My little propane block heater is installed but not plumbed yet. You can see why I like my three 31s.

Pierce

Re: U300 Grand Villa Starter Battery Pictures?

Reply #19 –
Quote from: steve31 –
Pretty sure I'm wired up like Andy. ( pic attached ). Start battery is the one on the left side. Will be honest do not know the CCA. Batteries were replaced day I got the coach. Great story for another time. We were at William Kent Campground Tahoe, nighttime temps high 30's. There a week, no block heater, hit the start for about 10 seconds a she fired off. Ran real rough and laid down quite the smoke screen for about 30 seconds but evened out and away we went. Never have used the combiner switch, at least to start the coach.
Your battery picture is very small. Can't see much detail. But looks like same wiring as mine.

It seems to me that the wire on the negative post is thinner than the wire on the positive post, is it true?
Can you use different wire for positive and negative?