Horsebox with Flat Battery

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SugarBeet

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I'm a complete horsebox novice, and have only owned mine (Iveco 7.5t) for about 6months. It hasn't been run in about 2months (horse injured!) and inevitably the battery is now flat.

Please could someone give me an idiots step-by-step guide to charging up the battery? I honestly know nothing about mechanics! Is it relatively easy to do?

Thank you so much!
 
My advice would be to get someone in the know to help. You need to trickle charge the batteries which would be straight forward. However there are two batteries on a lorry and you probably need to charge each one by disconnecting them and charging individually. You can charge together, but you need to check how they are wired up first.

If flat I would also check you have an isolator fitted, as otherwise your tacho will kill the batteries.
 
umm, does it have 1 battery or 2? if it has 2 (1 for living, 1 for starting engine, is what mine has) be careful or you'll do what i did and fry it by mistakenly charging it incorrectly... (my 2 were linked so the one at the front had reverse polarity but i hadn't been told, oops.)
safest is to take it off the horsebox, and then charge it, tbh. have you got a good charger/starter unit? you just fix the alligator clip thingies to the terminals (red to positive, black to negative), turn on, it should show the charge, and you leave it to it. best to charge on trickle charge, better for long term battery life. (remove top caps if it's the sort that lets you, so it can vent, i was told)
if you've taken it off the lorry you can check whether it needs topping up first (if it's not sealed, pop the top things off and see if the plates are totally submerged, if not, top up... with distilled water), newer batteries are sealed though so you might not need to.
it might be totally flat and refuse to take a charge, in which case you'll need a new one, a good one with plenty of power. can't check mine cos it's not here at the mo, but someone else will know what's ideal.
hope that helps a bit and doesn't just confuse you more!
 
you can get it jumped using a booster pack.
that's what we did.

we now make sure we isolate the battery if the truck is going to be sitting for a while.
 
To add to the above, when you have got the battery charged, then get someone in to fit an isolator switch to it & remember to turn the switch off when leaving for long periods.

You usually only have 1 battery on a smaller horsebox/truck for starting.
A 2nd battery may be fitted via a split charging system for running the living, and possibly to assist with starting only.
Some boxes just use a leisure battery for the living, this is either independant or can be fed via a split-charger from the main truck battery.

NOTE: If you have a 'new-ish' box that has electric (digital) dash etc and ecu etc, be very careful if trying to jump-start as you can well blow the system & fry it with a surge from another vehicle.
Best to remove battery & take off to charge it.
Any battery charger will do the job if it is working properly.
 
Get an isolator fitted and get a solar panel to plug into your cigarette lighter (£10 from Matalan or thereabouts). This will keep the battery topped up just in case there is a discharge of some sort from somewhere.
 
gunnergundog said:
Get an isolator fitted and get a solar panel to plug into your cigarette lighter (£10 from Matalan or thereabouts). This will keep the battery topped up just in case there is a discharge of some sort from somewhere.
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Hi gunnergundog a solar panel sounds like just what I need has there's a drain on my battery that we can't find. However I'm curious as to how it would work alongside the isolator switch as that disables the clock, cigarette lighter etc. or I am missing something?
 
There may be two batteries wired together to give 24v. If so and you want to charge them both at the same time then you will need a 24v charger. You can use a 12v charger but you will have to do each one separately. A 12v car charger is fine for this but may take a day or longer to fully charge.

Probably best to get someone who knows what they are doing to show you what to do.
 
dressage_diva said:
Kerilli - out of interest, do you have to use a battery charger specific to lorries or will a standard car charger work?
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a normal charger is fine. i have the 24v set up and have to remove the batteries to charge them with my 12v charger (which i used on my previous Ivecos without removing the batteries, hence my error).
as suggested, get someone who knows what they're doing to show you.
i have an isolator on mine, and i had a trickle charger on the last one, which was a godsend. tbh you should run the lorry at least every week, esp through winter, that's what my mechanics have told me. either 30 mins stationary or a 10 minute (minimum) run. even well-maintained vehicles have battery trouble if they stand unused, e.g. they said they do the Council vehicles and the school buses all have flat batteries after half term!
 
Iveco's have an issue with the tacho running the batteries down (assuming its a 75e14or15?), you can get an isolator switch fitted, although in the short term you can remove the fuse (but must put back to go anywhere) think its fuse 21??? But having an isolator is more efficient!
 
RobinHood said:
Hi gunnergundog a solar panel sounds like just what I need has there's a drain on my battery that we can't find. However I'm curious as to how it would work alongside the isolator switch as that disables the clock, cigarette lighter etc. or I am missing something?
Click to expand...

A drain that we couldn't isolate was precisely my issue.....I am talking about an ANTIQUE lorry (Renault Dodge 56) however here that didn't have a cigarette lighter originally.....however, friendly local mechanic wired in to the battery what he described as a cigarette lighter and what looks to me like a mobile phone charger.....the wires go from battery, through floor to dashboard where solar panel resides from which cable and connector (male/female) plugs into that coming from the battery.

HTH.....can put you in touch with said mechanic if you wish to PM me, although he is not in your area.
 
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Ah that makes sense. My dad put my isolator in for me and we've isolated all the cables that come off the battery. What I can do though is poke the crocodile clips through the hole we made when installing the isolator switch.
 
SugarBeet said:
I'm a complete horsebox novice, and have only owned mine (Iveco 7.5t) for about 6months. It hasn't been run in about 2months (horse injured!) and inevitably the battery is now flat.

Please could someone give me an idiots step-by-step guide to charging up the battery? I honestly know nothing about mechanics! Is it relatively easy to do?

Thank you so much!
Click to expand...
Yes undo one (any) lead of either batery then carefully check for + and - marked on the battery the red + from the 12 v charger goes
to + and the black to - you need a charger that puts out about 10 amps or a little more a big garrge type booster will charge them quicker but its best to charge then slowly
follow the instructions with the charger!! plug your charger in, if the baterys are totaly flat it will take about 24 hours for each one, as others have said a isolator is a great idea, or you can just take a lead of when you're not using the lorry and the batterys should be fine to leave for a few weeks, you can get a charger from a motor accesory place like halfords .... MAKE SURE everything is swiched off before conecting or disconecting things and make sure you dont touch the spanner against the other termainal or the chassis of the lorry when you put the lead on!!!!
 
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iconique said:
Iveco's have an issue with the tacho running the batteries down (assuming its a 75e14or15?), you can get an isolator switch fitted, although in the short term you can remove the fuse (but must put back to go anywhere) think its fuse 21??? But having an isolator is more efficient!
Click to expand...

The smaller Ivecos have the same problem, mine is a 6.5T and the tacho drains my battery - I had an isolator fitted and the problem is solved.
 
Thanks guys, went and bought an automatic battery charger today from Halfords - the staff in there thought I was a bit mad when I asked them which one was most suitable for a 7.5t horsebox! Hoping I got the right one. Going to drag the OH with me later today to the yard so we can take the battery out of the lorry. Then will bring it home and charge it! Also bought some battery water as recommended!

Another silly question though first if I may....where will I find the battery? :o:confused: I presume it'll be in the front engine compartment? It's an Iveco Eurocargo (think it's a 75E).

Will also definitely look into an isolator as recommended!
 
SugarBeet said:
Another silly question though first if I may....where will I find the battery? :o:confused: I presume it'll be in the front engine compartment? It's an Iveco Eurocargo (think it's a 75E).
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If its a 75E then you will have two batteries on the left hand side about 3 feet behind the cab. They are usually under a plastic cover that has two rubber fasteners. If you are removing the batteries be aware that they are very heavy. As well as undoing the cables there should also be a restraining bolt on the top connected to a bracket to stop the batteries moving around.
 
Fourlegsgood said:
If its a 75E then you will have two batteries on the left hand side about 3 feet behind the cab. They are usually under a plastic cover that has two rubber fasteners. If you are removing the batteries be aware that they are very heavy. As well as undoing the cables there should also be a restraining bolt on the top connected to a bracket to stop the batteries moving around.
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So I found it - no plastic cover (but some remenants of rubber fasterners, so looks like there was once one). We undid the two cables, but couldn't work out how to get the batter out with the restraining horizontal rod (the rusty looking thing in the picture below):

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We undid a vertical bolt which attached downwards through the rusty horizontal rod, but can't work out how to remove the horizontal rod (it looks to be bolted to something right at the back behind the batteries where you can get to it - unless we maybe went right under the lorry). There isn't quite enough wiggle room to get the battery out with the horizontal rod there :( Any suggestions?
 
SugarBeet said:
So I found it - no plastic cover (but some remenants of rubber fasterners, so looks like there was once one). We undid the two cables, but couldn't work out how to get the batter out with the restraining horizontal rod (the rusty looking thing in the picture below):

picture.php


We undid a vertical bolt which attached downwards through the rusty horizontal rod, but can't work out how to remove the horizontal rod (it looks to be bolted to something right at the back behind the batteries where you can get to it - unless we maybe went right under the lorry). There isn't quite enough wiggle room to get the battery out with the horizontal rod there :( Any suggestions?
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It looks to me as though there has been a bit of customising going on. On mine there is only one shelf which has two batteries on it, one in front of the other.

How many batteries could you see? I cant quite see if the bottom battery is connected to the top one or whether it is a separate leisure battery.

Just looked at the piccy again and it seems to me as if there are two batteries on the bottom shelf.
 
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Yeah it looked to me like there were 4batteries in total which completely confused me as I thought I had one leisure battery and one lorry battery! It certainly looks like the bottom ledge had 2 (the lorry batteries I presume) and two leisure batteries on the top.
 
It really needs the wires checking to see which are the lorry batteries - no point in guessing. Although my guess would be bottom for the leisure batteries because it looks to me as if that has been welded on afterwards.
 
Ok, thanks for the advice. The top batteries (or at least the front one I can see) say "Bosch" on them so i had presumed they were the leisure batteries, as the one at the front on the bottom has a picture of a truck on it! Going to speak to someone at yard tomorrow who hopefully might be able to help a bit more.
 
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