1995 Ford Jayco RV Won't Start When Hot

Overview

I recently picked up a 1995 Ford Jayco RV for $6,600. It’s in pretty good condition overall for its age with only 19,000-something miles on it. The RV has that classic 90s retro look which I kind of like, though I plan to modernize the interior by painting the cabinets white and updating the lighting. But first, I need to solve an immediate problem: the 14-year-old battery is letting me down. The RV drives fine, but once it gets hot, it won’t crank back up. Time to replace that ancient Ford Motorcraft battery and investigate the three-battery system.

Key Moments

• Overview of the 1995 Ford Jayco RV purchased for $6,600
• Discovering the 14-year-old original Ford Motorcraft battery
• Explaining the hot-start cranking problem
• Investigating the three-battery system (starter, generator, and house)
• Removing the main starter battery and air cleaner housing
• Cleaning the old air filter from 2005
• Plans to modernize the interior with white cabinets and new lighting

Full Transcript (Edited)

This is my 1995 Ford Jayco. It’s kind of an old RV, but I got it really cheap for $6,600. So that’s six thousand six hundred, and it’s in pretty good condition overall for something its age. It’s only got 19,000-something miles on it. I can show you what I think. It’s 19,000-something dozen miles.

It’s got this 90s retro look to it which I kind of like, but I’m going to change it up a little bit. I plan to hopefully paint all the cabinets white, kind of modernize it a little bit, change all the lighting. Yeah, it’s going to be a little bit of a project.

The Battery Problem

But right now what I’m doing is I am changing the battery because the battery’s letting me down when it’s getting hot. So I can drive it for a bit and then when I park it and turn it off, it doesn’t crank up again. And it’s because this battery, it’s 14 years old. It’s really old. It’s an original Ford Motorcraft, so they got it from the dealership, and so that’s the battery that goes here.

I basically just undid the negative lead, the positive lead, and the battery hold-down that was here, and then the battery just lifted out.

The Three-Battery System

I’m also looking over here. I was trying to see if the generator would turn on with the generator battery. This truck has three batteries: that one for starting the main engine (this is a Ford 460, like a 7.5 liter), and then it has this other smaller battery. This one, it looks like the positive lead… so the negative lead goes to the chassis here and the positive lead, if I follow it across the chassis here, this cable appears to go down towards the generator over here which is underneath this.

So this generator here, it’s an Onan Microlite 4000. It’s a two-stroke motor basically with a generator and cover. I tried to turn it on without the main battery installed, but it doesn’t do anything. So I also went inside the car and with that battery still plugged in, I can actually still kind of faintly see some of the displays.

This has some lights here that allow you to see like what the charge is, the holding tank, fresh water, you know, different things. And this is basically the main control panel. And this is the button to start up the generator, which doesn’t start up. So normally I can only start off the generator with the main battery plugged in, so I’m still not sure what that small little extra battery is for.

Removing the Battery

I’m going to go change it, and to change it I have to take out some of the air cleaner housing that I took out and I’m air drying over here. This one, so this guy, it’s kind of blocking… see, this sucks air through here into the air cleaner. It was kind of blocking the battery access, so I decided to clean it up while I’m at it and put it back in the sun.

The Air Filter

And check out the air filter which is probably as old as the actual battery from 2005. Although, you know, it’s not as horrible as I thought it would be, but some areas do have a lot of crap in it. I’m going to be wiping a little bit of this just to make it a little bit less dusty to work with. You know, a little bit of cleaning goes a long way in making sure you’re satisfied with your work. That’s how I feel about it.

I’m going to take this battery out and I’ll see how old it is because it’s probably from 2005 as well, or 2006 like the other one. So I’ll let you go and I’ll get to that.