What I did with the old electric golf cart.

BarnyardEngineering

Well-known Member
Location
Rochester, NY
Found out there was nothing wrong with the electrical system except for some corroded cables. So I put some new steel into the battery tray. Now I'm going to get it running and driving, then put it on Craigslist to recoup some of the cost of the "new" gas Carryall I bought.
 
I can't seem to get it into my customers' heads that electric golf carts are not like your car, you can't just add water to your batteries twice a year and expect it to work, you must clean them and coat the terminals monthly. Had one guy tell me that was ****ing ridiculous. You'll like the Carryall. Leave the governor working, 15mph is plenty and I'm tired of building motors for them because the plastic cam gear broke its 4 rivets so the valves stopped moving. Watch for cracks in the aluminum frame welds. And don't hit anything with it, especially with the right front wheel, that's its "glass jaw", it'll bend the sheetmetal subframe that holds the rack & pinion causing that to wear out in a couple months. Keep the king pins greased, pack the front wheel bearings every 3-5 years. If yours has front brakes, disconnect the cables to them, they are troublesome and unnecessary. Aside from that, treat it like any other air-cooled motor, keep it clean, change the oil and filter, it should be good for at least 2 decades.
 
They are not maintenance free like you said. I have an old electric EZ Go I use nearly every day, year round around cruising around building sites. It’s nearly 100% dependable, no choke, no stumble, gets up and goes in 20 below temps. But every month I lift the seat and hit the terminals and batteries and trays with a low pressure pressure washer. The cables are the maintenance item. About once a year I have to crimp on a new cable end and they do loosen up. This cart is used heavy but I have a hunch the cables will corrode the same even if it wasn’t used much.
 
It's the process of charging that does it, it releases corrosive gasses. A good quality non-hardening terminal coat helps a lot (nothing that resembles paint, and no axle grease or Vaseline please). But as you said, monthly maintenance. You have to get under there to water the batteries anyway, right?
 
I really like our old Cushman 3 wheeler electric. It has a pretty good size bed on the back unlike the newer carts with a well for club bags. New batteries every 7 to 10 years keeps it running really well and sure can't beat the price (was free) or cost of operation. I would like to put an electronic speed control on it to replace the resistor control but hard to justify what they get for the durn things.
 
It's surprising how thick of a layer of dirt can accumulate on the batteries in one month. I don't use the goo stuff on the terminals. I suppose I should though. Every month the green crap gets blown off the terminals anyway. This pressure washer I use put out 1000 PSI when it was new a good 20 years ago. Now it's no more than 500, perfect for this job.
 
Well, it's all back together and runs pretty good. One slightly warm connection after running it around for a few minutes, which I cleaned again and next time it was fine.

Ended up with all new cables.

Only problem is the corrosion. It's starting already. Before I hooked everything up I gave the terminals the baking soda treatment until they stopped fizzing. There was a LOT of acid on the tops of those batteries. Got it all clean and dry.

After I hooked it up and took a short test drive, I ran it through a charge cycle (first time that's worked in a long time) and the %$#@ crust was already starting to form on the terminals! Hosed down and scrubbed it all off AGAIN...

Gotta get this thing moved down the road before it turns the rest of my hair gray...
 

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