Days 102 and 103 - Battery problems with the Bus

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While we had been touring the Kimberley in the cruiser, our bus had been parked at Jakes (just out of town at Crossing Falls). We knew that it had a flat battery because Jake had been unable to start the bus and run it while we were away. It turned out that we hadn't got the isolator switch correctly set when we left and that's what had caused the problem.

We drove out to Jakes and confirmed the bus would not start and then called the RACT (who then got in touch with the RAC in WA who then contacted the Kununurra agent to arrange for a jump start. Of course, it was a little more complicated because the Coaster has two batteries and runs 24 volt electrics.

The guy finally turned up after more than two hours but couldn't get the bus to go - in fact we think he put the jumper leads on the wrong way because they started to smoke!

He gave up and said he would drive back into town and get the boss to sort it.

After a further two hours wait we decided that we needed to find out what was going on.

When we got to the depot, they were just getting ready to return to our bus (on the way to another call).

We drove out to Crossing Falls and it didn't take long to get the bus going again. We had to go for a (long) drive to charge the batteries.

The next day we decided to have the batteries checked and one of them was down on charge. We decided to renew both batteries to be sure that the bus would be reliable and luckily there was a business across the road from the caravan park that sold car (and truck) batteries. Because they were busy, Lenny had to do the work (under supervision) but neither Lenny or the guy noticed which way the batteries were joined (wired together) so that when it came to start the bus it would not go. The batteries then had to be turned around to be connected properly, but when that happened the terminals were too far apart for the existing wiring so a different battery had to be sourced.

That was an easy way to waste two whole days in Kununurra but that's what happens up there.

We did find out, however, that Lenny was not cut out to be a mechanic! One career change that will not be happening.

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