The hood switch is located under the hood, on the drivers side, kind of right behind the washer fluid fill. It's a push button type switch, should have a rubber gaiter on it, and point up to the hood. The reason for unplugging it before disconnecting the battery is in case the alarm defaults to armed when you hook it back up, it will see the hood open, and set it off. Won't cause any problems, aside from banging your head on the underside of the hood if you're not expecting it at all.

 

Got it. Thx Dave.

 

Found it as well.

Bryan; looked at the ready-brute as well. Still on the fence about it.

Where did you purchase your Blue Ox? On-line? retailer?

Your thoughts on the toad charger?

 

Purchased the base plate through hitchanything.com. Ordered it Saturday night, received it the next Friday. Tried to call them once, they do not answer the phone. Red some negative reviews about that. But my order went smoothly. I would be concerned however if I needed to talk with them for some reason.

Regarding the charger, since I'll be using a battery disconnect, there won't be a drain on my battery, so I haven't investigated chargers.

 

Read here on this forum and the owner's manual that you could encounter some problems should you decided to go with the battery disconnect. Sounds like you're a veteran at this (I'm a newbie myself), but I would use the forum's search bar and see what you can dig up about using battery disconnects and what happens to the dash lights and which ones light up. This is why I'm leaning towards a charger vs. battery disconnect.

Thanks for the lead on hitchanything. I may use etrailer.

 

Can't go wrong with etrailer. I'll search the disconnect issue. Thx for the heads up.

 

Bryan:

What did you find out about the Disconnect Issue??

What did you wind up using?

I'm approaching this stuff now.

 

Hey just for fun:

Rob replying to your disconnect on the battery. I tow my disco behind my MH. I did not do the disconnect, but here's what I did.

I followed the owner's manual in my '03 disco that discussed how to tow behind a MH. I towed my '03 Disco behind my MH round trip of about 2500 miles. But what I did to prevent battery drain was purchase a toad charger and used it. I never removed the hood alarm feature, and had no problems starting up my disco after every tow; didn't lock me out. But below is where I ran into a snag with the toad charger.

On one occasion, I had to two the Disco during the night and I turned on the parking lights so that the disco could be visible to rear traffic. In a nut shell, the Disco started up after my night-long travel, but barely. Then the "M" and "S" light flashed, as well as the tranny "D." In a panic and not seeing this M&S light flashing before, DISCO MIKE (a forum member) hinted that my battery might be low and suggested that I use a trickle charge to re-charge the battery. Did the trick. So what happened?

I think there was simply too much pull from the Landy's battery to supply power to everything and the toad charger I used simply couldn't keep pace with the demands placed on the Landy. Therefore, the Landy's battery was weak, triggering the M&S dance. (I used a 10amp toad charger).

Since you are heading toward the direction that I did and intend on towing behind a motorhome, just a quick heads up on the snag I hit.

Happy trails,
Rob

 

JFF, sent an IM in response to yours.

Gbob is dead on the money. I added a charge line from the MH 7 pin and have had zero problems. I don't however turn on the discos parking lights. I have add a bulbs in the tail light housings, so those are on when the MH's lights are on (and powered by the MH, not the disco).

 

Thanks all for this info. I'm hot on the trail of buying my first Disco and will immediately begin spending money (oh well). Hopefully these dollars will go toward add-ons and not repairs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!