2014 Great West Vans Legend SE

Wow! Wish I was able to do that kind of work. That's a REALLY nice set up.

Having had mine in place for over 2 years I was surprised to see how much corrosion I got over that time. The battery terminals were OFTEN covered in the white powder but I simply hosed them off before checking the battery water levels. I wonder if your shunt that close to the terminal will corrode. I mounted mine to the top of the battery bay with a cable running to the battery that reached both the inserted and the extended position of the battery bay. Still has it's own oxidation but really nothing compared to the terminals.

-Randy

israndy said:

Having had mine in place for over 2 years I was surprised to see how much corrosion I got over that time. The battery terminals were OFTEN covered in the white powder but I simply hosed them off before checking the battery water levels. I wonder if your shunt that close to the terminal will corrode. I mounted mine to the top of the battery bay with a cable running to the battery that reached both the inserted and the extended position of the battery bay. Still has it's own oxidation but really nothing compared to the terminals.

Click to expand...

Thanks, Randy.
I think the difference is that this is a fully-sealed AGM battery accessed from inside the vehicle. Since the battery doesn't vent, there are no corrosive acid fumes to cause that white stuff. I have never seen this type of battery with terminal corrosion. But, I'll keep an eye on it just in case. Access is easy in the Legend.

All done:

Nice Battery Fuses

When Great West installed my special-request Outback inverter, they failed to properly fuse the high-current battery-to-inverter wiring. Not good. The two batteries are in the rear of the vehicle on opposite sides, so there are also cross-connect wires that ideally should be protected.

BlueSea has a very nice battery-mounted fuse system:


They are neater, much easier to install, and cheaper than the more common Class T fuse holders. The holder is part #5191, and the 300amp fuse cartridge is #5190. I put one on the positive terminal of each battery.

Before:

After:

The whole job took maybe 10 minutes.

Added some power protection to my shore power input.



BlueSea 8077 Circuit Breaker:


Leviton R00-51110-SRG Surge Protector:

Re: Nice Battery Fuses

avanti said:

When Great West installed my special-request Outback inverter, they failed to properly fuse the high-current battery-to-inverter wiring. Not good. The two batteries are in the rear of the vehicle on opposite sides, so there are also cross-connect wires that ideally should be protected.

BlueSea has a very nice battery-mounted fuse system:
View attachment 66511

They are neater, much easier to install, and cheaper than the more common Class T fuse holders. The holder is part #5191, and the 300amp fuse cartridge is #5190. I put one on the positive terminal of each battery.

Before:
View attachment 66510
After:
View attachment 66509
The whole job took maybe 10 minutes.

Click to expand...

Wait, so the only connection you have to your house battery is your inverter? No other DC connections?

Re: Nice Battery Fuses

jostalli said:

Wait, so the only connection you have to your house battery is your inverter? No other DC connections?

Click to expand...

There are other connections. It is just that they all come off of the other battery. The one I took the picture of only has the cross-connect cable.

Except for the solar feed, they all go through a BlueSea ML-RBS remote battery switch, so I can easily shut down the entire coach.

cabinetry tweak

Great West has great cabinetry, but they kind of wimped out in the area between the front cabinets and the microwave, leaving a gap that has always kind of annoyed me as wasted space:


So, I decided to try my hand at some woodworking and turn it into a little niche:





I even added LED accent lighting.

Good match.

TV Storage

Continuing on the woodworking theme:

The Legend floorpan features the passenger-side front-to-back "wall of glass" that many of us prize. It also comes with a very nice 21" Jensen TV. Unfortunately, the TV is mounted between the two rearmost windows, where it significantly compromises the openness and panoramic view.



We don't watch TV all that much, and never while driving, so we really wanted to do something about this. I removed the screen and its bracket, and for awhile we traveled with a smaller set stored in a cabinet, and propped it up on the counter when we wanted to use it. Unfortunately, re-connecting all the wires got old, and it took a lot of storage space. Hmmm...

Those of you who have been following along will recall that when we ordered the van, we had Great West modify the galley cabinets so as to provide 4" of extra bed length for my 6'3" frame. They did this by shortening the cabinet and adding a carpet-covered filler-piece:



Eventually, it dawned on me that that piece was exactly the right size to stow the original TV, if I could convert it from a filler to a cabinet. So, I fabricated a door, found matching hardware, and reworked the box.



I lined the box with carpeting and rerouted the cables through the resulting cabinet:



So, whenever we want to watch TV, we just slide it out and hang it from the upper cabinet using a loop of picture frame wire.



The umbilical stays permanently attached, so the whole thing is easy peasy.

Even if not for a TV that is a really nice modification for a space that probably should have been utilized in the first place. Your TV was mounted much like my 2011. Between mine and yours they built a solid wall there for a short period of time that I thought was worse and broke up the openness even more. They quickly fixed the error of their ways.

Avanti:
Like you, I thought the open space between the cabinets should have been utilized. Really like your modification! Will have to see if we can do something similar... what do you store there?

IndyTraveler said:

what do you store there?

Click to expand...

Don't know yet. Haven't been out since I did that one. SO says that it will be good for "fragile stuff". Not sure what that will turn out to be.

The Legend comes with two pedestal tables that look like this on the bottom:



Inspired by a mod that Davydd did on his former van, I acquired a second receiver, ground out a little arc, and mounted it, offset from the original:



This makes for much more flexible use of the table. It can be used as a computer desk for the passenger seat:



or rotated out of the passageway:

I didn't think of just adding the second receiver to give an option. But then I kind of decided we would use the offset all the time and left the second table at home. I believe LTV has a table base that slides. I had thought about looking into that but never got around to it.

Our former Airstream Interstate had a huge two-pedistal table that fit in the aisle between the two front sofas. It had a slide (so you could get by it without sitting down), but it was too big and heavy to work well. Rotating a single pedestal table is a much more pleasant experience.

added some amps

The Legend came with two group 31 AGM batteries--each in an under-floor compartment all the way in the back. Between those compartments is a third, larger compartment meant for storage. After a year of use, we have convinced ourselves that we actually have more storage than we need. We can't say the same for power, so we decided to dedicate part of the center storage box to two more batteries. Yes, I know you are supposed to keep the batteries matched, but the ones we have are only a year old and have been treated very carefully, so I acquired two more identical ones, giving us a total of 440 Ah.

While I was at it, I decided to upgrade the wiring from 2AWG to 3/0. Four batteries in parallel means a lot of little cables. After considering the options, I decided that the only sane option was to acquire a proper crimp tool, along with lugs and bulk cable. Fortunately, it is now possible to purchase a very respectable hydraulic crimper set on eBay for $40. Here it is along with the cable and lugs:



Works great. Can't imagine doing this job any other way. Great to be able to make the cables to length on site. Recommended.

Came out like this:



Still plenty of room for our stuff:





I still need to build a cover for the batteries to protect the exposed terminals and hide the wires.

We are looking forward to more dry camping and less amp counting. Did an experiment this afternoon, and it looks like we can run the A/C for about 90 minutes before hitting 50% SOC. This is more than enough when we are sightseeing away from the campsite and come back from some sweaty activity and need to cool off.

The best part is that at the end of the experiment with the A/C, my crimp connections were cool to the touch, so apparently my crimps are good.

I had been shopping for a crimper, didn't think there was one for batteries, but your success made me redouble my search, and I have now purchased a crimper for my own upgrades, thanks.

The pics make it look like the two batteries you originally had in the outer two compartments are larger than the two new batteries. Are they all the SAME battery type? If not your charger will have problems charging different group batteries wired together in parallel. The smaller capacity batteries will finish charging and start boiling off, or the larger batteries will never get full charged and begin to sulfate.

-Randy

israndy said:

The pics make it look like the two batteries you originally had in the outer two compartments are larger than the two new batteries. Are they all the SAME battery type? If not your charger will have problems charging different group batteries wired together in parallel. The smaller capacity batteries will finish charging and start boiling off, or the larger batteries will never get full charged and begin to sulfate.

Click to expand...

Yes, all four are exactly the same (except for age). The center ones look smaller because there is a significant lip around the larger compartment, and the batteries are partially tucked under it. This lip is lacking in the outer compartments.

Having discovered that piggybacking on the Sprinter OEM alternator is a pretty poor way to charge my awesome new battery bank, I took the plunge and purchased a 270 amp dual alternator kit from Nations Starter and Alternator:



This is a very high quality product, purpose designed for the OM-651 engine. Everything fit like a glove.





I ran a new 3/0 AWG wire from the new alternator to the batteries in the back, and mounted the Balmar MC-614 regulator on the firewall.



Installed without issues. I am seeing about 207 amps at idle, which is just what Nation's said I would see. At speed, it looks like my four AGMs are willing to accept just shy of 250 amps. Glad I got that fat wire!

I used to be a skeptic about second alternators, but no more. On a good day, I was getting maybe 80 amps from the Sprinter's highly-optimized power system. This is better.