Hi all I am new to the forum. I know this has been beaten by every stick possible i just cant seem to find my answer. Maybe Im not searching the correct terms. I have a 99 coleman cheyenne. I added a battery to it. the wireing was there but no battery, so heres my issue and what ive come up with. First The interior lights, heater ETC, all work when the camper is connected to my dodge ram 2500 with the pig tail (7PIN). When i try to use the battery i get nothing. i followed the online manual and popped off the back panel of the camper to access where the positive wire from pig tail harness ends. I get power all the way to the converter when it is plugged into my truck. When i hook up battery the power never makes it to the converter. I even tried splicing the black positive wire and white ground thats in the pig tail to connect the battery thinking the original battery hookup wires were bad. but no luck. If there is a genius out there that can help it would be greatly appriciated.
Look for an inline fuse and/or a good ground. When the pup is connected to the hitch it is grounded to the TV chassis ground, this is why the 7 pin works while connected to the TV.
No bad fuses. When you say ground are there multiple grounds through out the camper or the main ground to chassis?
There's a resettable circuit breaker near the battery and connected to the battery positive terminal. If it's open you'll never get power from the battery to the trailer's 12 vdc system.
Here's a few thoughts.... 1) Are you sure that the battery is good? Test it on something else just to make sure. 2) As GreyFox mentioned, look for that auto resetting circuit breaker. If it's open, it's stopping all power right there. It should be located near the battery. Hook the battery up and see if power is making its way through the circuit breaker. If you've decide that the circuit breaker is open, why is it open? A) it has gone bad and corroded inside, turned everything green inside. B) it's able to pass power through it, but there is a dead short to ground of the power wire, (between the battery and converter), and it's continually opening from the ground. I would guess that this would also cause a problem when hooked up to the TV, but maybe when you're bending and twisting wires to attach them to the battery, you're creating the short to ground. Look for a chaffed wire.
There is no breaker. the wires come out of the A-frame where the pig tail wires come out. I will check the ground.
OK, so no breaker or fuse inline on the positive wire right at the battery.... How about a fuse or breaker in the converter? There is often a reverse polarity fuse for when someone (like me...) hooks up a battery backwards...
Make sure you clean all the rust off of both sides of the chassis ground point this is a common culpret on older pups.
Not on a '99 Cheyenne which has an (awful) Centurion converter which had no reverse polarity fuses. If the trailer doesn't have a water heater the converter will be a 6712 12 amp, if it does have a water heater it will have a 6720 20 amp converter.
There are no "pigtail wires" on a Fleetwood trailer, rather those that run through the box frame of the trailer terminate with a white multi pin connector. Into that connector is a short harness with a connector at one end that plugs into the trailer connector and at the other are wires, one of which will go to a resettable circuit breaker, then on to the battery's positive terminal. If your trailer isn't wired like this then someone has been into it, not knowing what they're doing. It's detailed on Page 12 of the 1999 Accessory Book. https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0273/4347/files/1999_coleman_accessories.pdf?16695232820753828628 And is available from colemanpopupparts.com https://colemanpopupparts.com/products/battery-harness The brake system breakaway switch is detailed on Page 32 of the 1999 Grand Tour Series parts book. https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0273/4347/files/1999_coleman_grand_tour.pdf?16695232820753828628
