I recently purchased a beautiful van we've deemed Vulvan. So Vulvan is quite interesting under the hood. There are 2 batteries to start off with, both look all nicely wired into the battery isolator (part no. 12023A). The isolator itself I believe is too new for this year of van. Upon further inspection I found a wire running the batteries in a parallel configuration. Now, that baffles my mind seeing how that would negate the purpose of isolating a battery. Our hopes are to use the isolator as it would be useful, although I want what's best for the van.

Any thoughts on what direction I should take this project? Remove the isolator and run the batteries parallel/ leave one disconnected or find a compatible isolator?

The van used to have one hell of a stereo system but the previous owner removed it at sale.

 

This was the reason for running batteries in parallel. More capacity than one battery.


How you connect the batteries depends on what you want to do with the power.


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Thanks, that makes sense. I had an issue this weekend with the batteries dying on me and the isolator not working properly when I had the parallel wire off. I am getting them back today after an over night charge. I confused at what this solenoid is?

 

Just to the right of the AC (I think) line and to the left of the battery tray


That is the starter relay. The positive battery cable is connected to the bottom lug as the picture is oriented. All accessories that require 12+ all of the time are connected there too. The opposite side of the relay has one heavy cable that takes 12+ to the starter.


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Ok, that's extremely helpful. I have found a hidden button on the floor behind the emergency brake that may be the toggle for the isolator. If it was on then that would explain why the isolator did not work while we were vamping.

 

Good luck.


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So after fully charged batteries something else is not working, the starter runs and the belts move but for some reason it just wont fire now. The starter sounds a little weaker than before. I have tried a little starter fluid straight into the carbs but nothing. any thoughts?

 

hidden button may be a kill switch

 

I added a second battery to my 96 Conversion van and wired them in parallel with a battery buddy. It all works just fine. Just make sure the battery buddy is wired right and working as it should.

 

I have a similar setup on my motorhome, which has 2 batteries. One is for the truck, ie starter exterior lights etc. The second battery powers things inside the coach, interior lights, etc, and is isolated from the truck battery so that if you run it down, you can still start the van. It should have a relay turned on by the ignition switch, which will allow coach battery to charge while van is running, but isolates it when ignition turned off. The button on the dash is usually an emergency start button, that ties both batteries together in the event the truck battery goes dead, allowing you to use the coach battery to assist in starting