Matt, thanks for sharing the details of your aux battery setup and
accessories. Few owners do such a nice job of wiring their stuff up.
I would make a couple of suggestions.

First, there is no need to open up the battery compartments in order to
connect the 2 batteries together to allow the aux bat to help the
starting bat. On your Westy you can manually connect the 2 batteries
together by opening the fuse cover behind the driver's seat and bridging
the 2 fuse posts with a coin, etc. This assumes that you used large
enough wires to connect the aux battery and relay to safely support
starting currents and I would always do so. Of course if the starting
battery is too dead to activate the relay this won't work but that is
unlikely.

Second,  the distinction you make between a solenoid and a relay is not
entirely accurate. The main thing is that the relay or solenoid needs to
be rated for continuous duty. There are 'solenoids' designed to be used
for the exact purpose of  separating batteries when the engine is off
and connecting them again when it is running. SurePower sells them in
addition to their isolator products and I consider them far superior to
the isolators for Vanagon applications.
 http://www.surepower.com/Products/batsep.asp

Mark

Matt Bennett wrote:

>In regard to your Vanagon questions, I have some information for you:
>1) Second battery question, go to this link:
>http://home.earthlink.net/~matsuwesty/page42.html
>........
>
>