Mark,

exactly, I am sorry if it was confusing at first. Yes, the diesel
battery position makes for shorter wire runs, but the idea applies
even to those unfortunates with batteries up front :)

I have my smallish (30 A/hr I think) gel cell battery to the right of
my starting battery.  Just fits in front of tail light.

To re-iterate, when key is off all power comes from house battery and
acts just like a one battery van. The starter cable, big one, is
however not in that circuit but is connected to the staring battery
(which, to belabour the point, is disconnected when key is off). When
key is on, relay connects car electrical system to starting battery
*and* house battery.

think of it as a switch as used in boats "batt 1 - batt2 ", except i
use a relay instead of a big orange switch (which I did consider but
figured it to be too much trouble).

Alistair

'82 westy, diesel converted to gas in '94
http://www.members.shaw.ca/albell/

On 28-Jun-06, at 9:24 PM, mark drillock wrote:

Ok, it sounds like nothing is still connected to the starting battery
except a main cable to the starter and a cable to the relay you use
to connect the batteries together. And since you have an 82 that used
to be a diesel, you have the much simpler charging wiring and the
starting battery in the engine compartment? I was confused by your
original post as I think Dennis was, as it seemed to say you have
headlight power coming from the starter battery but those other
connections were really referring to the house battery.

Mark

Alistair Bell wrote:

> Mark,
>
> the set up is such that when key off then the car works just like
> it  normally does except that the juice is coming from house
> battery  not  the starting battery.
> no other voodoo or complication, just as if one had one battery.
> but when the key is turned on it connects the starting battery and
> the starter and the house battery are all connected (and fused)
>
> Alistair
>
>
>
> On 28-Jun-06, at 6:53 PM, mark drillock wrote:
>
> I am curious whether you ever thoroughly checked during darkness to
> see
> what would work and not work with just one battery and then just
> the  other.
>
>
> Mark