Won’t start - Printable Version

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+--- Thread: Won’t start (/showthread.php?tid=8834)

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Won’t start - whited44 - 01-10-2026

Coach has been sittin in storage since beginning of November. Cranked fine, ran fine.

Went to crank it up today.  Turn the key and…. Nothing.  No crank. Isolated each the chassis batteries and checked voltage and they were about 13.6  House was 13.6.  Batteries were merged

Checked voltage at the starter and it was 13.6 positive and ground with the meter ruling out bad battery cables

Checked the starter relay where the rear start switch is, red on the small wire of the relay, and black to ground on the battery and turned the rear start switch.  It went from 2.7mv (switch off) to 6.0mv (switch on) and 22mv (switch in crank position).  I would’ve thought this would have had volts not milli volts going thru it.   

I’m thinking the relay is bad??  I’m going to jump the relay next time I’m out where I store it.  But does anyone have the part number for this??  So I can have a spare??  Or confirm that it’s bad?  Or can anyone shed any other light on the subject??

Thanks

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RE: Won’t start - rvguy - 01-10-2026

any 12 volt solonoid will work, like for a ford.

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RE: Won’t start - Richard - 01-11-2026

https://newellgurus.com/showthread.php?tid=4307

It’s a Cole Hersee. The start solenoids and merge solenoids are different.

And despite what Newell says leaving the batts merged in storage is not a good practice. If you don’t have a trickle charger for the chassis batteries already installed, ,buy a standalone one and plug it in.

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RE: Won’t start - whited44 - 01-11-2026

(01-11-2026, 06:03 AM)Richard Wrote:  https://newellgurus.com/showthread.php?tid=4307

It’s a Cole Hersee. The start solenoids and merge solenoids are different.

And despite what Newell says leaving the batts merged in storage is not a good practice. If you don’t have a trickle charger for the chassis batteries already installed, ,buy a standalone one and plug it in.

Thanks for chiming in Richard.  You think I’m barking up the right tree with those voltage readings??

I usually keep them un merged with a trickle charger on them but that’s another story

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RE: Won’t start - Jack Houpe - 01-12-2026

I would suggest to unmerge the batteries then let rest with no load no charger then take voltage readings of each battery bank. Anything under 12.2v is questionable. I'm not fond of the merge relay it should be defined as an Emergency Merge only, I've seen many who use this as a permeant fix to bad batteries. If you have a set of good batteries and a set of bad batteries the bad will take down the good even with a trickle charger over time.

There is a fellow member here that had the identical problem your seeing and after we discussed on what to do to solve it I asked him to take a GOOD pair of jumper cables and put the negative lead on the battery then the other negative lead to a good clean place on the frame and the coach fired up. His negative post on the battery was compromised.

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RE: Won’t start - Richard - 01-12-2026

It is entirely possible that I misinterpreted your comments on voltage readings. I would be looking the BIG terminals on the solenoid. Do you have 12V into the solenoid? And when you engage the starter switch do you have 12V out on the other big terminal.

If not, then I would confirm that the solenoid is getting 12V on the small terminal when the ignition is in crank position.

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