I parked my 91 E350 Diesel last night and tried to start it a few hours later but it tried for a second to start and then just dieseled a little bit until it stopped. And that was it, there was no power to anything. I checked all the connections and fuses and everything seemed fine. I tried jumping it to my dad's F150 but it acted like it was shorting out and actually melted the rubber on the jumper cables. (disconnected immediately) I just got back from a 300 mile road trip and the van gave me no troubles. I would say the only thing different was that there was a Coleman refrigerated cooler plugged into the ciggarette lighter while it was parked. But that was the case all weekend long and it had no problems starting even with it plugged in. The cooler was unplugged while we tried jumping it.

We replaced one of the batteries and tried jumping that but had the same problem. At one point, though after disconnecting the 2nd battery we were able to start the van. So we put the original battery back in thinking we found the problem and again it sparked and smoked immediately. We put the new battery back in and it did the same thing. Both batteries had power when we hooked up a test light to it. Has anybody seen anything like this before?

 

Well both batteries tested as no good and are being pro-rated under warranty from the manufacturer. I put two new batteries in and now the dash lights are flashing and it does not start.

 

Sounds like a problem with the 'dual battery controller' or whatever its called. However I don't know where you should go from there.

 

So, this past week my dad stripped out most of what remained of the old alarm system and a tow brake controller and replaced both batteries. This got the van started and I drove it the 100 miles home but I noticed this morning that it was having difficulty starting, like there was barely enough power to turn it over. By the time I left work this evening it was completely dead again.

The tow truck came and tried to jump it and while he was trying to jump it the engine was trying to turn over even though the keys were not in the ignition! Again the jumper cables got really warm to the touch. It seems to me that there is a short somewhere but I am not sure if it has to do with the alarm stuff or not. The engine trying to turn over while being jumped even with the ignition turned to off is pretty damn weird.

 

Well, as best as we can tell it was the alternator that failed and it looks like it took the batteries with it. I ended up replacing both batteries, the voltage regular, starter solenoid, and then the alternator and now everything seems to be back to normal. I even noticed that my stereo which was having power issues as the backlight would flicker sometimes now runs solid with no issues.

Expensive to figure out and fix but at least everything is running now and appears to be running better than it was before.