I'll try to make this without any unnecessary details, I am building a busking van that's going to be my home. I have solar involved and a lot of electrical devices, But so far I've kept that isolated for the most part. As of right now my shoulder is not tied in to the starter battery. This is going to have a lot of details and I'm sure I'll still miss some but I'd really appreciate if you can read this whole thing as I am almost at my wit's end. Basically a rundown of almost everything I've done or found since getting this vehicle related to the performance of the engine itself.

I've basically only upgraded the ground wires and power wire to the starter, essentially a big three upgrade or 4, I can't remember but it does have a 130 amp alternator that I believe a company Sherrod customs installed. But they didn't have anything on its wiring to provide me as they had lost all documentation when they moved States. So I did take out a lot of things and I was barely starting to learn electrical and new to auto repair.
I took out all the ancient equipment It's a 2001 but there's a giant cobweb of wires for old lighting VCRs, a box TV... At one point before I realized it I had also taken out the computer that wasn't the PCM. Not certain exactly how that has affected or if it's involved but I didn't want the security features and took out the stinger devices and wiring that was involved with things like remote key and the fact that I couldn't even stand up inside it when the key was off without it sitting out the alarm.
It had fuel consumption issues, misfires, and also along the way there were broken drive belts, The AC didn't work and I had hand in screwing that up trying to learn how to fix it myself, trying to do it properly but screwing up essentially I needed AC that was not going to rely on the engine compressor anyways so I took that out of the picture. No more compressor but left everything else in in case I want to go back to that.

Since then I've gotten much better at this kind of thing and realized what I had done wrong and the consequences of it but the electrical for it I don't think is the component to my current problem.
I replaced the intake gasket after using that Blue devil head gasket repair because it turned out I did have a head gasket or valve cover gasket issue, two bottles of that and I was no longer getting bad results from a block test kit. I immediately had much more power when I was driving but fuel consumption was still an issue and I had a vacuum leak that I had to take care of next. I knew I had a vacuum leak in the first place but when I did that block test I focused on me more important thing. With the engine being as difficult to access as it is even with both sides and one tiny little detail that's not necessary but it helps understand is that I have a mental illness I'm a borderline personality and have a few other diagnoses so frustration sets in, I make mistakes easy and one thing I'm notorious for is forgetting to put a screw or bolt back in losing one all together, doing multiple jobs at once. Suffice to say I when I started I didn't belong under hood.

I changed the spark plugs and the ignition coils but that particular job took so long because of a number of things but suffice to say it took a few weeks for me to even get everything reinstalled when I did the ignition coils and It's not impossible that duster something got into a cylinder or two.

When I bought the van, which wasn't my choice it was actually a gift of sorts, It also had issues with its coolant, It was sludge complete mud and probably took at least three full flushes as well as roughly 5 full distilled water flushes before I could even get it to start running clear.

It wasn't too long ago that I tried to start it after the intake gasket and it was a rough day that I ended up forgetting a couple of connections, a fuel injector here an ignition coil there, one part of the vacuum line tubing, And there is one more big detail but I'm not sure if it's relevant this also had a rear AC unit that I completely removed including the coolant line all the way to the back as the blower motor was leaking and I just didn't need it so I took all of it out rerouted the coolant which is when I learned about the heater core. It doesn't heat and the common problem that I see people have is it being stuck on defrost and all that so I was having that issue That's another reason why I completely just took it all out and it was going to rely on nothing but solar. But I'm not going to go into the details about my solar setup because that's going fine.

When I forgot those connections and turn the engine it ran like ****, I immediately turned it off. Realized what I did fixed it and at the time I had a cheaper OBD scanner that told me one last issue which was a camshaft sensor error.

I ran that scan because I had it run like **** and then after the scan and then finishing everything I realized I'd missed I tried starting it again and finally I had this no crank no start one click.

This is when I decided to redo my big three upgrade and I say redo because I had done it beforehand after I had broken down at a Taco Bell and got stranded. With the lack of soldering supplies and only pieces of unused cables for my solar with me and not knowing nearly what I know now which is still not a lot, I knew that it was a shawty job and I decided to redo it but that did not fix my issue. So even though I was able to drive it again after Taco Bell I was now months later dealing with this no crank no start again.

I had done all the voltage drop tests and stuff like that parasitic draw, checking my grounds, And even though it had bought an amp clamp I had forgot to do and amperage draw test for the starter and that's what I suspected next was that the starter motor. I didn't mention it earlier because it was pointless and needless, and also somebody who knew more installed it for me at that time. Turns out the old one was fine but when I used the implant to test it now it was drawing 500 plus amps. That led me to believe it was the solenoid but with my experience with batteries and having repaired a couple of them, literally JD welded one brought a friend back to life with learning how to charge them correctly but I guess ATMs are a little different with the plates and I didn't know that they could actually supply more current than a device draws. But when I took the starter to AutoZone in the last just in case attempt to see if it was actually the solenoid drawing too much power their bench tests that have worked and my battery was not holding a load even if it was 13 volts. If I tried to start it at this point it would immediately go below 10 volts and then it would slowly go back up to 12 plus volts. Not even charging it it would get it back to it on its own. I thought if I could just get started then maybe the alternator charging would be better than the chargers I was using, which was an old school Schumacher as well as a new one. But I was hesitant to charge the starter battery on my own manually at the necessary high voltage because I spent most of my time learning about deep cycle batteries. So this was a dual purpose but I still wasn't comfortable with it the way that you can charge regular flooded batteries and bring them back to life even if they're dead and can't hold a charge. Since I couldnt inspect the plates I was lucky enough that it was still under warranty and had it replaced but I've been too nervous to started honestly since then. I honestly don't want to hear that single click again and realize that I still haven't found the core of the problem but I'm wondering if somehow along the way I might have somehow possibly damage the ignition switch, I forgot to mention that I replaced the transmission range sensor. And there's been a few other things that I've replaced along the way that I don't think are the culprit but they were such cheap parts I figured why not.

The summarize I haven't really done much with the engine that I haven't mentioned but I did take out the throttle body and thoroughly clean it, But it was running in between all that and it's only not run since doing the throttle body finishing the ignition coils and spark plugs and changing that camshaft sensor. However the problem did exist before I redid the big three upgrade properly and I don't believe it's related but just in case I did also replace every single fuse in the engine compartment. With the amount of coolant flushes, One time I forgot to screw the cat back on and it overflowed, perhaps getting some into the fuse box.

If you made it this far thank you for taking the time I appreciate it and I'm hoping that you can help me feel a little reassured or tell me what you believe might be wrong if I've missed something. That was pretty detailed but there are still other things that I didn't mention however I've woken any suggestion any comment anything you have to offer, please. I'm a little tired of trying to do this on my own and I have pretty much learned everything alone. Spent far too much money at AutoZone and on a disability budget.

 

After reading your post , one thing I can add is you are not alone. There are a lot of people out there that are supposed to have the experience that do the same thing.

This is going to take someone with the background with campers do unsnarl this thing. One will have to start from the beginning and check each and every step to verify what is needed , is present. and go from there. As much as I enjoy doing automotive electrical work, there is no starting in the middle.and we take one thing at a time.

Wish I could be more help, but Hopefully someone that has more experience with campers will offer some better help.