Wiring for battery

[Drfish]

I have a 2010 Jayco Tent trailer . Some wonderful person cut the wires and took the battery !! Needless to say I need to replace the battery and figure out the wires. There are 3 wires- 1 larger white wire that goes to the chassis so I assume this goes to negative. Then 1 middle size wire that is all red so I assume this goes to positive. Then 1, a little smaller wire that is red and black which I am not sure where it goes !! It seems to go into a small black box located pretty close to where that battery is. As I remember unhooking the battery after each trip, there were 2 wires on one terminal and one on the other. Just not sure which.
I would appreciate any help in figuring this out.
Thanks
Peter

[tnchuck100]

The white one goes on the negative terminal. The other two go on the positive. The smaller wire is probably for the electric brakes break away switch. There should be a small cable (not an electric wire) that connects to your tow vehicle. In the event the trailer ever became disconnected that cable would pull the pin on the break away box and apply current to the brakes.

[Drfish]

Thanks for the quick reply. That is what I thought but did not want to just do it without getting the information first. and yes you are right, the smaller one is for the brakes.
Thanks
Peter

[RoyBraddy]

Since the cables got cut off hopefully the ends that are still accessible are long enough to hook back up.

This might be a good time to install a BATTERY DISCONNECT SWITCH on your trailer cross frame. You can install your POSITIVE wires to the switch terminals and then run a new short cable from the switch to the battery terminal. If the white ground cable is too short now you can also purchase a longer length with ring terminals already on them. You should be able to find both ends real easy as it will be close to the battery install.

You will need to have all of your wiring setup with ring terminals on the ends and you can most likely replace the WHITE FRAME GROUND cable and the smaller POSITIVE CABLE from the breakaway switch. The other LARGER POSITIVE CABLE comes directly from your CONVERTER/CHARGER 12VDC POWER DISTRIBUTION panel area and may not be easily replaceable. This means you may have hand crimp a new ring terminal on the end of this cable. Making up the cables on your own might be a pretty good challenge without the proper crimping tool. Smashing them on with a hammer does not sound like a good idea to me but I hear others do that..

Your TENT TRAILER not having a underbelly covering will make it pretty easy to trace down the cable and replace them if they need to be longer. I picked up one of those $60 8-ton hydraulic hand crimpers that does a nice job of crimping on ring terminals. I'm always working with battery cables it seems.


My batteries are mounted across the tongue frame and I have three BLUE SEA BATTERY SELECTOR switches installed across the frame cross member which is close to the batteries. With these switches i can select any of the multiple batteries to use or disconnect from the system. This also gives me ring terminal studs to connect too so all of my battery cables are installed with ring terminals on each end. make for easy replacement or upgrade to larger cables etc...




Roy Ken

[RoyBraddy]

This also might be a good time to upgrade to two 6V GC2 BATTERIES from COSTCO or SAM's CLUB. You can mount these in a metal box across the tongue frame. This will give a good 220AHs or so for camping off the power grid. Upgrading also has to include a smart mode converter/charger install to at least a 45AMP model for the two batteries. You might as well add LED interior lights while you are at it.

You can't stop the thieves from stealing your batteries but you can do things to slow them them down and maybe they will get your neighbors batteries instead.

My batteries out in the open like they are have "TAKE ME" written all over them haha.. My next upgrade will include one of these boxes across my tongue frame.


Roy Ken