Help with wiring Grandby to Tundra

PDXcowboy

New Member
Joined
Feb 10, 2015
Messages
7
Location
Portland, OR
After a few years of searching, I am finally the lucky new owner of a 2006 Grandby! It's a shell model, though has the furnace and auxillary battery, 12v outlet set up. It has the 3 prong Marinco plug coming out of the camper. I need to wire it up to my 2007 Tundra. My question is, can I just get the female receptacle and wire that straight to my battery? Or do I need to have something else in line. I don't want to hook it up to my 7 pin, as I regularly tow trailers, and don't want to mess with that system.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks.
 
I'm not sure if the shell model with the battery option has a battery separator or not. If it does all you need is the female receptacle and a 30 amp circuit breaker located near the truck battery. If you don't have a separator then you should get one or put in some sort of switch to disconnect the truck battery when the engine is off. FWC uses 10ga wire for this connection but some members on this site use a larger wire to reduce voltage loss. The 10ga has worked fine for me.
 
Admittedly, electronics are not my specialty...here is what my setup looks like. I know that the red pull turns the power on and off, but not sure what the other piece is - the isolator?
 

Attachments

  • image.jpg
    image.jpg
    88.9 KB · Views: 174
I clipped the marinco since I was having a hard time finding a match and went with an Anderson connection. This also let me use heavier wire. I ran the wire inside the frame rail and then came out and though one of the rubber plugs in the front of the bed.
 
You will need to fuse or breaker the positive lead at the source(truck battery if you choose), to shut that circuit down should you ever have a problem. I used a 30a resettable marine breaker that can be used as a switch also.
 
Thanks all, I'll wire it up this weekend. So am I to assume that there is an isolator in my setup, based on the picture?
 

Attachments

  • image.jpg
    image.jpg
    88.9 KB · Views: 126
PDXcowboy said:
Thanks all, I'll wire it up this weekend. So am I to assume that there is an isolator in my setup, based on the picture?
post-5847-0-98186300-1423757912_thumb.jpg


That is an isolator on the right. Not sure just how it is wired. ASSUME the bottom terminal is from the truck, not sure where the wire hooked to the same terminal is going, that wire is not isolated from your truck battery. Top wire should be going to your battery positive. You do need a negative hooked to the isolator ASSUME that is the black wire with the blue end hanging in the air. You should test it to be sure it is working.
 
Got it all hooked up, but it didn't charge the camper battery (which unfortunately I discovered while camping - didn't have enough power to start the furnace or the lights...) The battery in the camper is old, so I'm assuming that's the issue, but is there an easy way for me to tell if the separator is working and I'm getting power from the truck to the separator to the auxillary battery? I'd prefer not to be stuck out in the cold again...

Also, if the truck is running, should I be able to use that power to power the lights etc.? I tried that but it didn't work. Is that because of the separator?
 
Check the voltage to the camper battery when the truck is running, should be over 12V, if not there is a wiring problem or a blown fuse.
 
BillM said:
Check the voltage to the camper battery when the truck is running, should be over 12V, if not there is a wiring problem or a blown fuse.
Also if the camper battery is dead the isolator will not connect to it.
 
My isolater makes multiple clicks a it toggles on and off. I'm using 10g fused positive and negative directly from the battery
 

New posts

Try RV LIFE Pro Free for 7 Days

  • New Ad-Free experience on this RV LIFE Community.
  • Plan the best RV Safe travel with RV LIFE Trip Wizard.
  • Navigate with our RV Safe GPS mobile app.
  • and much more...
Try RV LIFE Pro Today
Back
Top Bottom