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Old 07-07-2019, 06:00 PM   #21
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I forgot to ask about the blown 25amp fuse, have you traced that out if no directory to determine. Not a good practice to replace a fuse and not know why it failed. Might be a heater motor, a pump or ???


John

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Old 07-07-2019, 06:36 PM   #22
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Quote:
Originally Posted by david.dgeorge07 View Post
Are you sure you’ve checked all the fuses? Mine has a lot of places to find them...
I think I’ve seen them all. I’m going to address the relay, and look at the positive accessory wires at the battery.

Joe
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Old 07-07-2019, 07:30 PM   #23
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I forgot to ask about the blown 25amp fuse, have you traced that out if no directory to determine. Not a good practice to replace a fuse and not know why it failed. Might be a heater motor, a pump or ???


John
The 25a wasn’t blown. To be clear, this is in the dash fuse panel for the chassis, not the side panel for the body. The fuse itself was corroded and was non conductive. Interestingly, in the manual that part of the fuse panel has no identification.

Joe
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Old 07-08-2019, 02:00 PM   #24
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So . . . no dice. I've inspected everything my novice abilities can detect. I even added a bit of coolant to the expansion tank because it seems that low coolant in the tank (or low oil) can cause the same effect.

I even tried the pay service "Just Answer." They suck.

I may need a tow of shame. I'm kicking myself; it was running fine.

Joe
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Old 07-08-2019, 02:42 PM   #25
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Quote:
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So . . . no dice. I've inspected everything my novice abilities can detect. I even added a bit of coolant to the expansion tank because it seems that low coolant in the tank (or low oil) can cause the same effect.

I even tried the pay service "Just Answer." They suck.

I may need a tow of shame. I'm kicking myself; it was running fine.

Joe

Don't tow just yet Joe.


Time to take it from the top again. These gremlins can hide easily hen someone is a tad frazzled, believe me I know what frazzled is when troubleshooting.


So your bus was fine until a spark from moving batteries over. Solar charger of some sort? Was it connected to the battery or elsewhere?
Are your batteries charged up full at the moment? Do you charge with cables removed or connected, one or two start batteries?


Just trying to reestablish what is what instead of paying someone just yet.



Did you press the relay connection together yet?


You mentioned all these positive connections to check.



Any pics of this before and after any cleanup of those connections?
This sure would help me and everybody, including yourself.


Good now on the 25 amp fuse I assume, with a replacement?


Any pics of your ECM and harness for that?


John
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Old 07-08-2019, 02:47 PM   #26
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the justanwser site is good but you have to do a lot of legwork... if your tech sucked then give a bad review and get a refund... what you really need is the wiring diagram for ECM POWER..


when sparks flew its quite possible it popped a fusible link.. at this point its going to be time to see if anyone anyplacxe has the power and ground diagram...


im also assuming when you moved the batteries that a wire which was once connected to the battery didnt slip behind and get missed? I know my bus has the big red positive wire but also a few smaller ones.. one of which is the feed to my engine computer BAT circuit..



on the pic of the fuse panel one of those devices is a breaker with a manual reset button.. (silver with a little red button).. is that button set? not popped out?
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Old 07-08-2019, 03:15 PM   #27
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Thanks for the positive vibe.

Two chassis batteries, both in excellent shape, fully charged by a solar trickle charger wired directly to the battery posts. The batteries have a disconnect on the negative side for storage.

All was fine until I moved them. (I did this to put them in a smaller bay so I can use the larger bay for the house batteries.)

On the negative post I have the big chassis ground, a 2 gauge cable to the battery disconnect and the trickle charge wire. On the positive post, I have the big cable, three accessory cables, and the positive from the trickle charger. I'm confident that all the cables are intact and connected back they way they were.

The trickle charger disconnects via a SAE connection. When I disconnected the batteries in their original location, that connectors were still attached to both battery posts, but the metal lead was exposed. That hit the positive post and sparked.

After I moved the batteries and reconnected them, I got the fault code.

I have physically checked all connections and they are clean and solid. I checked all the fuses in the chassis panel under the dash. I replaced one 25a fuse that tested bad with the little two-prong tester, but I don't know what the fuse goes to. The manual is blank and that part of the fuse panel.

I read that low oil or coolant can cause this, but those two conditions are fine.

I am hesitant to touch anything directly related to the engine side wires. It's over my pay grade and I will get hurt or do more damage. I just spoke to a private mobile mechanic who has seen this before and said, "I'll have that running in no time." We'll see, but he sounds legit. Pretty fair rate, too. He's coming tomorrow morning. I'll hang tight till then.

Joe
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Old 07-08-2019, 03:23 PM   #28
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Joe, call your local CAT dealer and run this story by the service advisor.
They should know exactly if that created the problem or something else.
Have them explain as best they can or record their advice also.
I'd do this before your tech visits so you know what he tries explaining to you.

Good call if above your pay grade though, could take a while for someone not familiar, like most of us.


Good luck,


John
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Old 07-08-2019, 03:32 PM   #29
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OOOH OOOH OOOH, Just a thought.
This happened to me once on a car I was restoring.

There's a thing called a fusible link that is a plain looking wire that connects the positive to the starter in most automotive applications. Any small short can cause the link to fail and you'll get power but the starter won't turn. If all your fuses look ok and it cranks but you get the no engine code, I bet there's a fusible link in the ground circuit that you blew when it sparked. You could easily miss it because it just looks like a wire, usually placed between the protected item positive connector and the main wire to the item.
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Old 07-08-2019, 04:24 PM   #30
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The only time I've seen something like this is on internationals where they have a seperate fused lead for the ecm connecting to one of the positive posts on the battery. If you forgot to connect or blew this, you'll get the troubles you're having.
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Old 07-09-2019, 12:26 AM   #31
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cadillackid View Post
... what you really need is the wiring diagram for ECM POWER..


when sparks flew its quite possible it popped a fusible link.. at this point its going to be time to see if anyone anyplacxe has the power and ground diagram...

My suggestion is that you contact your local Freightliner dealer (go to the parts counter with your VIN) and ask them to pull your ECU power wiring diagrams. While you are there, ask them to get you a login to the DTNA website (Daimler Trucks North America). Once you have the login, you can pull the diagrams on your own computer.
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Old 07-09-2019, 01:05 PM   #32
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OK. Two things:

I'm dumb.

I'm lucky.

I put a ground on the positive post. I really tried to avoid being dumb, but it happened. I looked at the pic of the original setup, after I had it cleaned up and orderly. On a positive note, I met a guy who seems like a smart and easygoing mechanic. He was 10 feet from truck when he said, "I see what you did."

At any rate, we moved one wire, and the bus started right up. The only odd thing I noticed is that the "Range Inhibitor" light came on a few times. When I shifted from D to N and back to D it was normal. I'm guessing that the ECM has to re-learn some things following my abuse.

Thanks for the help.

Joe
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Old 07-09-2019, 01:08 PM   #33
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Everyone likes a "Happy Ending"!
Glad you got it fixed and done...
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Old 07-09-2019, 01:24 PM   #34
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I'm positive that I don't want to be negative.
Quote:
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...Any input is appreciated...
But it positively appears a negative input would've been appreciated by your bus!
(Ain't it always the simple sh1t that plumb evades ya..? [emoji848])
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Old 07-09-2019, 01:28 PM   #35
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I'm positive that I don't want to be negative.

But it positively appears a negative input would've been appreciated by your bus!
(Ain't it always the simple sh1t that plumb evades ya..? [emoji848])
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Old 07-09-2019, 01:29 PM   #36
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Sorry.
It's a sickness, I know...
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Old 07-09-2019, 01:33 PM   #37
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Easy to do stuff wrong. I helped a buddy install an after market heater/ A/c in his '56 Chevy pick up and he managed to hook the heater hose to the A/C evaporator and fill the entire A/C unit with antifreeze. I flushed the thing with alcohol followed by mineral spirts and a long evacuation. He too got lucky. After 5 years his A/C is still working.
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Old 07-09-2019, 01:41 PM   #38
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Happy to hear she lives for another drive Joe.
You night want to invest in some wire markers or even just red tape to mark all those positive wire connections for future cleaning. This eliminates all doubt about where they go. Simple, cheap and effective.



A practice I have is, to place each battery cable in a plastic sandwich bag and tape it there good. That avoids any "unwanted splashing" because most of the time the cables decide to move on their own due to the twist in them from manufacturing. You were lucky yes, sometimes the splashing is costly to machine and man depending on the systems involved and the voltage and current involved. Burns and blindness come to mind from being too complacent.


John
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Old 07-09-2019, 01:47 PM   #39
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yes!!! glad its fixed!!! Like I say the ECM's are pretty hearty and dont destroy easily... the range inhibit light is the "check trans" light for your allison... your allison likely had a code set that cleared on its own... my guess is it was the J939 comms link failure code... the trans computer likely powered up fine while the Engine ECM did not.. so the trans computer never "saw" the keepalive signal.. so it took a bit for the all to sync back up normal..


-Christopher
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Old 07-09-2019, 02:06 PM   #40
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Quote:
Originally Posted by BlackJohn View Post
Happy to hear she lives for another drive Joe.
You night want to invest in some wire markers or even just red tape to mark all those positive wire connections for future cleaning. This eliminates all doubt about where they go. Simple, cheap and effective.



A practice I have is, to place each battery cable in a plastic sandwich bag and tape it there good. That avoids any "unwanted splashing" because most of the time the cables decide to move on their own due to the twist in them from manufacturing. You were lucky yes, sometimes the splashing is costly to machine and man depending on the systems involved and the voltage and current involved. Burns and blindness come to mind from being too complacent.


John

Wrap the last 4 or 6 inches of positive cable at the connector with red electrical tape.
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