Battery charge line while flat towing Gladiator

[tcopeland]

I flat tow our Gladiator behind our RV. Anyone installed a charge line on their truck?

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[Jeeper44mag]

Following....

 

[ShadowsPapa]

I flat tow our Gladiator behind our RV. Anyone installed a charge line on their truck?

if your RV has a round trailer connector on the back you could rig a line from the RV's trailer connector back to the Jeep's battery to keep it charged just like happens with pulling a trailer where the tow vehicle keeps a 12v battery charged for emergency braking, etc.

In other words, if the RV has this sort of setup - there's a ground and power connection -

 

[tcopeland]

if your RV has a round trailer connector on the back you could rig a line from the RV's trailer connector back to the Jeep's battery to keep it charged just like happens with pulling a trailer where the tow vehicle keeps a 12v battery charged for emergency braking, etc.

In other words, if the RV has this sort of setup - there's a ground and power connection -

Thanks
Working on that set up.

 

[bridluz]

I flat tow our Gladiator behind our RV. Anyone installed a charge line on their truck?

Curious what the purpose would be? I have been flat towing my Gladiator for 2 years now and probably 15,000 miles and never had an battery or charging issue.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Curious what the purpose would be? I have been flat towing my Gladiator for 2 years now and probably 15,000 miles and never had an battery or charging issue.

Check some of the threads here where folks flat towed and ended up with dead batteries because systems kept waking up. It's a thing.

 

[bridluz]

Hmm. Didn't know that. Glad I don't have that issue.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Hmm. Didn't know that. Glad I don't have that issue.

It MAY be due to the rigging they have, or who knows. It's just that for some, it's a thing, obviously you are evidence it's not always a problem.
I've learned that if I want to catch my vehicle at rest and minimize any draw while doing testing or whatever, FOB stays in the house (detached garage) and I avoid touching door handles if possible. And if I do have to open a door, I open it and then let it sit a while.
These things are like a cat - sleeping in another room but when you open the refrigerator door not matter how quietly - they wake up and come to attention.

 

[PaulW]

Very common to have a charge line to avoid a dead battery in the Gladiator.
Depends on what kind of tow setup you have. The high end setups may not need a charge line. For a DIY setup with a 12 v brake device for sure you will need a 12 v supply.
How to do it is connect the 4 pin to a new 6pin with one of the 6 pins connected to the RV. Tons of advice on how to do it if you search.

 

[Andy29847]

The Gladiator dead battery while towing issue happens when you have old or weak batteries, you drive for a long time in stop and go traffic (especially at night), and you have LED taillights. There is a sensor in the taillights that wakes up the Jeep's systems.

 

[tcopeland]

Curious what the purpose would be? I have been flat towing my Gladiator for 2 years now and probably 15,000 miles and never had an battery or charging issue.

Wish I could answer that but I’ve had dead batteries numerous times.

 

[Andy29847]

https://www.jlwranglerforums.com/fo...flatlining-when-flat-towing.15523/post-378299


From Cooltech on the big thread about this issue: "Let me try to (briefly) explain. When your Jeep has rear LED lights, the wire that traditionally goes to a rear bulb instead goes to a circuit board. The LED light is mounted to this circuit board. But also on this circuit board is a fault-sense wire that goes back to the Body Control Module (BCM). The whole purpose of the circuit board and this fault sense wire is to let the BCM know that the LED light is functioning. An unfortunate consequence of this "reporting" is that when a tow harness.... like the CURT harness, the MOPAR Harness, the Cool Tech Harness, etc. energizes one of the wires for the rear lights, this fault-sense wire carries a signal back to the BCM and wakes up the Jeep."

 

[tcopeland]

So the solution is?

 

[ShadowsPapa]

So the solution is?

Power the Jeep - use a charging line. No problem then.

What Andy was doing was explaining why some say "why are you having problems, we tow ours all the time and never see a problem".
Andy explained it's the lights waking the system up when there are LED tail lights.

So the solution is to start with 100% fully charged batteries and/or use a line from tow vehicle to Jeep to keep the batteries charging while towing it.

 

[tcopeland]

I do have led tail lights

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