Need Liberty 24V Help!

[VegasDogMan]

Friend of mine was killed over the week-end in an aircraft accident and his wife is now on road with a hired driver bringing his 96 Liberty Elegant Lady 45' to Vegas.

When my friend parks his coach he turns off battery and some other stuff and unplugs something labeled 32A converter (a 120V device) so he can plug in 120V power for his trailer.

When he died they were parked for a few days... she was able to turn on Battery Master and DDEC to get coach running.

They've driven 450 Miles and she reported to me that BAttery Light was on... Told her to check belts - she said they were OK - told her to keep driving but turn off Bus Air and use Gen/Cruise Aire if needed.

Got another call - Battery Balance (Hi/Lo) light is on now.

Any Ideas as to possibly something else turned off? Or just bad batteries/Alternator?

Need answer/Suggestions... they're still on the road.

[tdelorme]

How about having her call Liberty direct. 800-554-9877
I think someone there can help real quick.

[Loc]

There is a signficant diffference between the Battery Balance (yellow light) and Battery Hi-Lo (red light) lights. If the Hi-Lo light is on, tell them to shut the coach down and get assistance immediately. I learned the hard way on the Hi-Lo light. The voltage regulator was shot and I burned up the house batteries, chassis batteries, isolators, equalizers and alternator by driving the coach 50 miles. Fortunately, I had good fire extinguishers on board or I would have added the bus to the list of items destroyed because one of the isolators caught fire while driving down the road.

[VegasDogMan]

spoke to liberty and they suggested moving Coach power cable on Isolator to Engine Battery Terminal on Isolator effectively joining both systems (temporarily) without isolation.

Lotsa cautions - and the driver is not the one I'd trust to make the wiring change.

they're running generator and 24v battery charger right now and limping along.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Lee,

I would have advised running the generator and the 24V charger, but I would issue a word of caution to the driver.

He should monitor the house and chassis voltage gauges. They should both be indicating somewhere around 27 to 27.5 and if they got higher to shut things down immediately and if they got down to 25 or so to also consider it a problem needing attention, but less dangerous than an over voltage which needs immediate attention.

I would be very reluctant to have a non-professional moving the wires and cables around in the back.

[truk4u]

Lee,

Depending on what part of the country they're traveling, there's lots of help here with the members!

Let us know if we can help get them home...

[VegasDogMan]

Thanks for the suggestions.

They got as far as Laughlin Nevada before coach quit. The hired driver was able to purchase 4 new engine batteries and went another 40 miles before noticing decrease in voltage.

They were out of cell range and were long past due so I hopped in the car and went with another Prevost Owner heading down the road from Las Vegas to Laughlin, NV and we finally found them.

Alternator was not doing its job so we disconnected the hot lead from the alternator and since it's a 24 V coach with 2 separate 24V systems we took a jumper cable (nce engine was running) and tied the two battery systems together by jumpering across the battery Isolator.

Ran generator to keep batteries charged via inverter and were able to drive tie 75 miles back to vegas at night with all lights working.

Now, need to replace alternator. Anybody want to buy 1996 Liberty Elegant Lady 45' from upcoming estate sale?

Owner was killed Saturday in first solo flight in ultra-lite Trike.

[jello_jeep]

Owner was killed Saturday in first solo flight in ultra-lite Trike.

Very sad to hear of your friends aviation accident Lee, our condolences to your friends for sure..

[rmboies]

Thanks for the suggestions.

Owner was killed Saturday in first solo flight in ultra-lite Trike.

Lee, what a tragic accident, I am very sorry to hear about your friend....A good reminder for all of us to live each day fully because you just never know. Our thoughts are with you and your friends.......

[win42]

I'm sorry for the widow but this sounded like a case of trying to live life too fully. We all have tendencies to push the envellope further than needed.
Please be careful when choosing your fun POGGERS.