Awesome! Glad to hear you are back up and running. Lets see some pictures!
Thanks! Will get to pics soon...
I'd ask them to order two of those fuses so you have a backup.
I'm down with that. I think the tech will keep a few spares on his truck now. Know I would...
That’s real good news. I’m curious though was the battery, starter, and fuse all 3 bad? Or just the fuse and the tech through the other 2 in for good measure?
On some level I don't really care, because it's fixed; but I get your thinking.
Here's my understanding so far: sequence most likely was battery went low from little run time and a bunch of short runs of the engine while on and off the ship, trucks on way across the US from left coast, and then a few short runs while being prepped for delivery to me.
Temps were low, when I got delivery, and then I ran her about 6 hours that day. She sat on Sunday, then went to start on Monday, a week ago - no joy.
So, from the slow cranking until it died I immediately thought battery- so I tested it and charged it cautiously - due to sub-freezing temps, when a frozen deeply discharged battery can explode violently and unexpectedly.
Battery showed fully charged, but no results. Did not know of the 300 amp fuse at the time. Tech came, changed out battery and found parasitic draw of 2 amps. He had me turn key to crank- nothing. He was stimmed; then did some diagnostics, and found the blown 300 amp fuse. I think he then removed it but hooked up the 2 wires that were on the top side of the bolt holding the fuse and wires to the positive cable's busbar. I had gone inside while he removed sheet metal and dove into the hunt/removal of the starter. When I returned to the scene he had her spun around and ready to go.
So, as far as I know all three were dead for different reasons. Clearly, to my mind, the 300 amp fuse blew due to the slow cranking when I tried to start her last Monday. I inspected the Bendix gear teeth of the defective starter and found no obvious damage. I don't have any other reasonable logic for the sequence of events, and the starter blowing a 300 amp fuse is pretty weird as far as things go on a new machine, of any type?!
Other plausible explanations are welcomed...
There are two other battery/entire electrical system 'switches' that might have come into play: one the incorrectly labeled battery isolation switch, located above the battery ground post/cable. It turns to lock the electrical system from the battery, hence isolation. BUT the tech said, even though it is supposed to lock it out completely, he believes it does not turn off everything, so maybe it has a delay to allow some items to store settings like the time of day, etc. into memory, so on reboot settings are remembered... It is 'spliced' into the negative side battery cable wiring. And there's a solenoid, also connected into one of the cables to the battery; not sure which one since I was doing my diagnostics not realizing the 300 amp fuse existed and was blown at the time I was circuit testing...
The other master control switch is a big red button under the seat bottom, along side the seat's platform, where the fuse box and other under seat wiring goes to get lost for all time.
This button is big and is intended to be slammed in an emergency, but is not for turning the machine off unless something is wrong, or an accident has occurred, for instance.
Unfortunately, I could not stop the delivery driver from slamming it to demo to me how it works, when I asked him about it. Not saying it caused the fuse blow out since that didn't happen until several days later, but the manual said using the switch under non-emergency conditions could do machine damage, possibly. I hear lawyers in the background helping write all manuals these days, eh?!
I did have the tech add my just bought battery heater pad, and I will add my 'Thermo-cube', (on at 35 degrees F, off at 45 degrees F thermostatically controlled switch) that allows two items to be temp controlled by an extension cord.
The tech liked the idea and told my wife he might get one for his on at dusk, off at dawn truck heater, which costs like $15/day in electric... WOW!
That's way too much $$$ for me...
CM out for now.
