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What is the correct chassis battery for my coach? I am thinking the big 4DLT OTR truck type but what is in  it are typical car/truck batteries. Coach is a 1986 40’ with the 8V92 silver engine.

[encantotom]

you should have 2 8D batteries for the engine and 2 for the coach side. they are twice the size of the 4d's. unless someone changed them. but i am not totally sure. measuring the compartments for the batteries would help you for sure.

that is if you dont have the right batteries in it now to compare.

8d flooded batteries are about 200 bucks and agms range from 400 to 600 plus.

tom

[Tf175]

Our '86 has two 8 D batteries as Tom said , on slide outs either side . We replaced old ones a couple of years ago with Deka flooded batteries . AGMs would be better .
Chris

[Tf175]

Forgot house batteries , we have four deep cycle also replaced with Deka earlier this year . Will post specifics later .
Coach may have had 4 D originally , but came to us with the four deep cycles .
I also have a charging system update , will post in appropriate area .
Chris

[dflanery]

this may not be the correct place to post or ask this? but my 1987 did not have the house/coach battery's when I purchased it. and the people that I purchased it from had no clue of the coach as they only owned it for 60 days realizing it was more than what they could manage. what I am looking for is a diagram to wire up the house battery's as everything is running off of the 4-engine battery's.

[Richard]

How many house batteries?

[Fulltiming]

I have is an owner's manual from a 1987 40' Newell pdf file that indicates that on 3 axle coaches, 6 sealed, maintenance-free batteries are used. 2 high cranking amp batteries for the chassis and 4 deep cycle batteries for the house. No mention is made of the size category for the batteries. I would measure the compartment and find the largest capacity batteries that will fit meeting the above criteria. No sure when Newell switched to using 2 8D batteries for starting and 2 8D batteries for house but that is what my 1992 had. Both are 12 volt systems and are merged together when the coach is running so the alternator can charge all the batteries as you are driving. Frequently, 4 deep cycle battery systems use 4-6 volt batteries with both pairs individually wired in series to bring the voltage of each pair up to 12 volts, then the pairs of batteries are wired in series to increase the current while maintaining 12 volts.

I have never seen an actual wiring diagram for an older Newell coach. Comments or thoughts are welcome.

[kyleb]

My 87 came with 2 8Ds for chassis & 4 6v golf cart for house. I changed to 2 8Ds for house & kept the the 8Ds for chassis so that they would charge evenly when all connected together.

I have been very pleased. The redundancy is nice.

I also replaced all of the battery cables with 0000 tin plated marine cable. I bought a hydraulic crimper so I could make my own cables.

As for a wiring diagram, I don't have one - but I will attempt to describe . . . . .

-Hot from house battery bank goes to one terminal of the house disconnect switch.
-From the other terminal of the house disconnect switch, 3 cables are connected - one to a big terminal on the merge solenoid, one to the house load distribution, & one to the generator (for starting)

-Hot from chassis battery bank goes to one terminal of the chassis disconnect switch.
-From the other terminal of the chassis disconnect switch, 2 cables are connected - one to the other big terminal on the merge solenoid, the other to the chassis load distribution & starter

For the merge solenoid to work, at least one battery bank must have a sufficient charge to energize the solenoid coil.

I also replaced the disconnect switches with higher amp rated switches with larger terminals (Cole Hersee #75908 300A continuous, 2000A intermittent)