whats the best way to hook up electric pump to truck?

[inzane]

for starters, my truck battery (terminal cable) caught fire today....... for the past month i have had my shurflow pump wired direct to my truck battery.. today while turning out of the bank i noticed smoke comming out of the engine, i pulled over fast, didnt know whether to run or what.. I popped the hood and the battery was on fire a bit.. i grabbed some kitty litter out of my spill kit and threw it on there which put it out..

I'm not sure how it was hooked up, my brother in law did it, but there was a wire going from the pump to the positive terminal, and that wire was toasted from the battery all the way to the truck bed.. there was another wire going from the negative terminal on battery grounded to the truck. all i know is it was working just great.. I am not quite sure why this happend all of a sudden... I'll never wire it up like this again.. this could have been really really bad.

any suggestions? I have a boat battery in the back of my truck that i used before.. but not sure how to keep it charged? I thought i may be able to run my pump directly through my hitch plug in, its one of those 7 blade deals i believe.. but i never had any luck finding an adapter.. not to mention i don't know much about wiring up electrical stuff.

[jlong10]

You need to have an inline fuse on your wire going from the pump to the positive terminal. It will blow the inline fuse rather than toasting the wire and stop the current.

[WestGaPineStraw]

Originally Posted by inzane

for starters, my truck battery (terminal cable) caught fire today....... for the past month i have had my shurflow pump wired direct to my truck battery.. today while turning out of the bank i noticed smoke comming out of the engine, i pulled over fast, didnt know whether to run or what.. I popped the hood and the battery was on fire a bit.. i grabbed some kitty litter out of my spill kit and threw it on there which put it out..

I'm not sure how it was hooked up, my brother in law did it, but there was a wire going from the pump to the positive terminal, and that wire was toasted from the battery all the way to the truck bed.. there was another wire going from the negative terminal on battery grounded to the truck. all i know is it was working just great.. I am not quite sure why this happend all of a sudden... I'll never wire it up like this again.. this could have been really really bad.

any suggestions? I have a boat battery in the back of my truck that i used before.. but not sure how to keep it charged? I thought i may be able to run my pump directly through my hitch plug in, its one of those 7 blade deals i believe.. but i never had any luck finding an adapter.. not to mention i don't know much about wiring up electrical stuff.

Go to Walmart and get car stereo power kit, it will have everything you need plus fuse.
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[gregory]

like the others have said put a inline fuse on the hot side of the battery... also make sure you wrap the hot side wire in something.. wire loom its pretty cheap...

[Cadzilla]

The right gauge wire helps too.

[CHARLES CUE]

The reason the wire burnt was it was shorted out to ground you need to protect the hot wire in a wrap and tie strap it to the truck. and you need a fuse as others have said. Install the fuse right next to the battery. on newer trucks there is a power hook up off the battery which would be a better place you wont have a problem with battery acid. The size of the fuse would depend on the amp draw on the pump. Most likely you will need a 15 amp fuse 12 or 14 gauge wire

Good luck
Charles Cue

[inzane]

i'd like to try to get it hooked up through the hitch plug in. if i can't get that to work i may take it to a shop that installs car stereos or something to see if they can get it setup right.. with my luck i'll do something wrong and might not be so lucky next time if something like this happens. this all happend when i was turning left at a green light, was punching it through because there was a lot of traffic.. the boat battery which was in the back of the truck slid over and bumped the wire going under the truckbed to the battery... wondering if this could have caused it to rub something.. i dunno.. i know after that turn it was on fire..


so I figure if i could run it off the hitch plug in i can plug it in only when i need it.. any suggestions on doing it that way? I went to TSC and they just didn't have much selection on adapters.. gonna see what i can do with it this weekend. I could really use a 200 gallon space saver if anyone near me has one used for sale!!

[corey4671]

I'm looking to do the same thing. What kind of trailer plug do you have? I have a round six pin in the bed of the truck. I think the center pin is a hot line. That's how I plan to hook mine up.
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[Cadzilla]

You guys are way over thinking this. Just run some good cable to the battery with a 15-20 amp fuse, wrap it and secure it and you should never have a problem. Ground to the bed or if you want to go the extra mile ground to the frame.
I don't even go that far. I run a deep cycle marine battery mounted to the sprayer with a couple short wires and a circuit breaker to power my reel motor with 300 feet of 5/8ths hose for tree spraying etc.

[inzane]

I have the 7 way rv plug on one side, and then a 4 way flat input that i plug my trailer too. i know there is a 7way to 4 way flat adapter.. but the plug comming out of the shurflow pump is a 2 way flat.. wondering if it would work if i plug the 2 way into the end of the 4 way input?? let me know how you get yours working.

Originally Posted by corey4671

I'm looking to do the same thing. What kind of trailer plug do you have? I have a round six pin in the bed of the truck. I think the center pin is a hot line. That's how I plan to hook mine up.
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