o/t gas golf cart

My dad is getting out of rehab this week after having a hip replaced. We have an old gas golf cart that I think will make life on the farm a bit easier for him as he continues to recover. I got it running yesterday but have to continually fool with the choke to keep it running. Is there an easy fix or is my only hope a carb rebuild?

A new spark plug will do wonders

How old is it? I had a similar problem and we talked about it on this or one of the forums (lots of arguing). It was about older "small" engines built before ethanol was around not running well on ethanol laced gas. You probably will, at least, have to clean the carburetor jets but in my case it was just running too lean and increasing the fuel flow about 10% with a larger jet was the only thing that made it run perfect. Same thing with my old lawn tractor.

Jim

You could try some injector cleaner to clean the jets or octane booster mixed with the gas. The octane booster works great in the old Farmalls and John Deeres to keep the plugs from getting a film on them causing them to misfire. Just talking from experience...

Bro's lost a leg. we've both purchased such mechanical animals for getting around. He the loss of a limb. Me for varied oldtimer's deceases. I've even implemented mine.
With his found summer running okay. Fall'n'cold comes on I switch the standard sea-level jet for the bigger Denver rocky mountain jet.
Give the manufacture a call and as most put together their machines for varied elevations have them fit you that machine with a normal jet your elevation plus a winter one for cold mile high winter weather use.
Fernan

Clean the carb, jets are plugged. Starving for fuel.

L.

if your are fooling with choke then it is in the carb,depending on the engine i find in my shop alot of timesit actually cheaper to just unbolt the carb and throw on new one. some kits are over half of new carb and kits do not inlude much,especially if your carb has accelerator pump on it. and i even have one of the fancy carb cookers to clean carbs.

I would completely disassemble the carb and clean everything esp the jets and install n new spark plug n see what happens. That made mine run perfect which acted like you say before.

John T

It it were me I'd have the jet's probed and bowel cleanred before I woulda stood up and started typing.

That's not the only thing(s) but a solid place to start.

Now having had both messed up leg and golfcar, they are not as easy to get into and out of with a peg leg as one might imagine. But I guess once it get's you there it doesn't matter if the broken leg sticks out the window to operate the excavator.

if you've got it running try putting about double the concentration of Seafoam in the gas as recommeneded on the can and just let the engine run for a while. Start out for a while at low idle and then open it up and let it run at high idle (no load) for a while. Usually this will clean out any varnish present in the carb.

I've had this work for me many times over the years, but there are times when it works...but it doesn't. By that I mean over the weekend I got an old two man auger I own running after setting for close to eight years. After doing what I described above I got it where it would start with a small shot of ether, and idle with the choke on, and eventually to where it would start and idle properly, no choke. Once to that stage I moved to high idle and got that working too.

When I finally got started helping my neighbor put in a few post holes it worked great for about 6 holes. Then it started dying under a load but would still idle perfectly. I'm pretty sure what happened was the Seafoam broke lose a piece of varnish somewhere and clogged a jet in the high speed side.

Like I said it worked, but it worked too good so now I have to open up the carb again and do another thorough cleaning. In the end it's well worth buying a can of Seafoam and trying it before you tear into the carb. Worst case it's good for the gas, and will help clean anything out of the carb you might miss if you do have to tear into it.

A lot more info would help us help you. Is it a 2 stroke or a 4 stroke engine??? Is it one that you start it one way to go forward and then to go back wards you start it back wards??? Type of carb also would help since some have a diaphragm type carb and those if you have not done so can need to be replaced so as to work with this new alcohol fuel we have.

I would change the plugs, clean the carb, and check the valve adjustment. The valve lash is critical on some of those golf cart engines. If it is an EZGO with a Robin 4 stroke, the valves are set at .004