Thread: 1,300kms from home and no alternator

Originally Posted by drivesafe

D4 plus Caravan, minus an alternator and 1,300kms to home.

Hi folks, this is an incident that occurred just before Christmas to an AULRO member, penglish.

penglish was enjoying some holiday time with his family but as he pulled up at a fuel bowser at the Pimba Roadhouse ( just south of Woomera ) and turned the ignition off, he sees a red light on the dash a split second before he turned the ignition off.

So he turns the ignition back on and sure enough, the battery light comes on.

After some investigating, he finds the alternator was no longer charging.

He is towing a caravan, and is 1,300kms from home, literally in the middle of nowhere.

After making some enquiries, it is going to cost him $800 to have the D4 towed to Port Augusta, and he would have to leave his family and caravan at the road house.

After making numerous enquiries about the availability of an alternator in port Augusta, he found there was not only none available there, he could not locate one even in Adelaide. Even Land Rover Adelaide did not have the part in stock. It was 30 December so most places were also closed.

So after a call to me, and told me he had a 2,000w Honda generator, and a battery charger in the caravan. Plus one of those cigarette plug LED volt meters.

penglish rewired his USI-160 isolator, so that all his batteries ( cranking battery, auxiliary battery and two house batteries in his caravan ) were now all linked together and spent the night in a local caravan park, on a powered site in Woomera.

The following morning, with all four batteries charged, penglish set off to Port Augusta, 188kms away. He made it to Port Augusta with the cranking battery at 11.0 volts.

In Port Augusta, he bought the biggest battery charger he could get. A 21 amp charger. He also bought a new cranking battery, just incase the now old one, didn’t make it.

In Port Augusta, penglish used his portable gen to power both the caravan battery charger and new battery charger. Running them for 3 hours, before proceeding on to Morgen, some 287kms.

Attachment 167960

In Morgan, he stayed at another powered site, using both chargers to recharge all his batteries overnight.

The following day, he drove 226kms to Redcliff, where he spent another 3 hours recharging all his batteries before continuing 177kms to Hopeton, and another night at a powered site.

The following day was a 385kms drive from Hopeton to Melbourne and home at last, where he could finally get the alternator repaired.

The new battery charger cost $229, the new cranking battery was $329 and the alternator repair was $1,100.

Glad it was fixed, noted you wrote alternator repair and not replace, a new genyine denso is about 680 bucks, cheaper than a rewind and diode replacement surely. Btw i like the idea of having the genny running and charging batteries whilst driving, but probably not the safest way to do it. So recharging batteries at powered campsites is a great solution. Reminds me of that movie the Martian where he drives the rover 3500miles to the resupply ship. Well done Tim and penglish.

Originally Posted by drivesafe

Hi Briar, while a D3 would be difficult to bridge batteries, but a D4 would be easy.

With either the SC80 or the DT90 fitted, simply disconnect the cable running between the circuit breaker and the auxiliary battery’s positive ( + ) terminal, at the circuit breaker.

Take the cover off the cranking battery compartment and loosen one of the bolts connecting cables to the cranking battery’s positive ( + ) terminal clamp.

You would not remove the bolt, just loosen it.

Then, as the lead from the auxiliary battery’s positive ( + ) terminal has a 5mm eye terminal on it, you can not fit the bolt on the cranking battery’s clamp through this as the bolt is an 8M bolt.

So simply loosen the bolt enough to allow the terminal on the auxiliary battery’s cable to be pushed under the edge of the terminals connected to the cranking battery’s positive ( + ) terminal clamp and tighten the bolt up so it holds the terminal in place.

As long as this is a tight fit, the cable will stay in place until the alternator is fixed. In the meantime, all the batteries will remain connected while drive and charging.



BTW, Briar did you get up the Tamborine Mountain?

Thanks Tim

Yes, did get up Tamborine Mountain but didn't go to DCS. Stinking hot day, even up there. After a couple of walks, wife wanted to go back to Air Con. I checked the morning I went up, and no one wanted any specific questions asked of DCS so I didn't feel compelled to go. Curtis Falls and the Skywalk at Tamborine Mountain are nice walks.