fzjmemphis
Wanderer
Hey guys,
I recently bought a 96' LX450 with around 176k on it and a T-MAX dual battery system. It's just about as solid of a truck as you can find mechanically, but I've been experiencing some crazy electrical problems that seem to get worse as the weeks go on. I've done crazy amounts of research on the forum, but have yet to find one that meets my criteria. Any advice or help is greatly appreciated. Here it goes...
On the first day I bought it, as I turned the key at the gas station from acc to start, I lost all electrical power to the vehicle (dash lights, wipers, etc..). All I had to do to regain power was to go under the hood and disconnect and reconnect the ground off of the main battery and everything seemed to be back to normal as it was when I test drove it. This did not happen again for a couple of days and I didn't think much of it.
Things started to get interesting when after a couple of days this became the regular start-up process. I would go under the hood, disconnect, reconnect, then link the dual batteries and it would start right up no problem. I had read on the forum that some other users had experienced this as a product of a bad battery, so I swapped the battery from my 97' collectors edition into the Lexus and it changed nothing.
After swapping the Lexus battery back in, the T-MAX system won't link the two batteries and shows constantly full voltage on both batteries and that it is charging the main. It will now start but its VERY weak, and I have to try turning the key from acc to start a couple of times before the starter will engage.
(charging blinks which you cant see from the image)
I'm gonna drop a couple more pics in the thread just for reference, but I'm at a loss of ideas here. The previous owner was nice enough to help me try and solve the issue, but we had no luck. All and any advice is greatly appreciated.
Thanks so much, everyone. I hope you all are well and safe with all of this madness going on.
I recently bought a 96' LX450 with around 176k on it and a T-MAX dual battery system. It's just about as solid of a truck as you can find mechanically, but I've been experiencing some crazy electrical problems that seem to get worse as the weeks go on. I've done crazy amounts of research on the forum, but have yet to find one that meets my criteria. Any advice or help is greatly appreciated. Here it goes...
On the first day I bought it, as I turned the key at the gas station from acc to start, I lost all electrical power to the vehicle (dash lights, wipers, etc..). All I had to do to regain power was to go under the hood and disconnect and reconnect the ground off of the main battery and everything seemed to be back to normal as it was when I test drove it. This did not happen again for a couple of days and I didn't think much of it.
Things started to get interesting when after a couple of days this became the regular start-up process. I would go under the hood, disconnect, reconnect, then link the dual batteries and it would start right up no problem. I had read on the forum that some other users had experienced this as a product of a bad battery, so I swapped the battery from my 97' collectors edition into the Lexus and it changed nothing.
After swapping the Lexus battery back in, the T-MAX system won't link the two batteries and shows constantly full voltage on both batteries and that it is charging the main. It will now start but its VERY weak, and I have to try turning the key from acc to start a couple of times before the starter will engage.
(charging blinks which you cant see from the image)
I'm gonna drop a couple more pics in the thread just for reference, but I'm at a loss of ideas here. The previous owner was nice enough to help me try and solve the issue, but we had no luck. All and any advice is greatly appreciated.
Thanks so much, everyone. I hope you all are well and safe with all of this madness going on.