I have an old electric American Sportworks Chuck Wagon, it’s an “offroad”-ish utility cart that I use for farm chores. I love it, but it’s getting tired and doing weird things.
I know the batteries are nearing their end (we’ve replaced them once already) and it’s got a reasonably new charger. And I don’t think my issues are battery related anyway.
My main issue now is it’s periodically losing or dropping power, but then it comes back and works fine. It definitely doesn’t like sub- 40 deg weather, but that may be a combination of elderly batteries and whatever else is going on. Today it was surging - very slow to start, then surging with normal power, then dropping back again. I can keep it going with feathering the accelerator, mostly.
A month or so ago something in the accelerator let go so that instead of having some resistance to the pedal it’s now really easy to press down. It still pops back when released but I noticed this morning that it’s getting slower to come back.
I also wonder if it might be something to do with the drive belt slipping, because it kind of fells like something it either slipping and then grabbing, or a contact somewhere is loose and getting intermittent connection.
Once or twice when it’s quit on me entirely I’ve gotten out and rocked it by hand, side to side or back and forth, and that temporarily fixes whatever it is.
Does this ring bells for anyone? This area has a few golf cart and motorsport places but they seem to only deal with common name brand service (EZ Go, Polaris, Club Car etc)
I don’t have the cash for a new (or even good used) one right now, and if I can fix it myself -or get my husband to- I’d be very happy!
Is it old enough to just have a series of resistor coils to control speeds? More modern golf carts have solid state electronic controllers. I have a 1972 Melex for my yard cart that uses coils. Anyway, many times the battery cable connections can be at fault. For a quick test you can feel each battery terminal after driving for a awhile. They should not feel hot. Remove each cable end and clean the lugs with a wire brush and see if that helps. I have also had problems from the small control wires not fitting tightly enough. You can wiggle them around or pull them one at a time on and off a few times to help cut through corrosion.
If the physical feel of the go pedal has changed, then something mechanical has broken or gotten gummed up. A return spring broke, the hinge broke or finally got so much mud & greasy sand in it that it doesn’t move well, etc.
Digging around in there may not be fun, but ought to be the kind of fix you can see, as opposed to the sorts of invisible fixes that purely electrical / electronic stuff often needs.
Thanks for this! I didn’t have the time this morning to take off the cupholder/console and bottom cowling to really get to the innards of the thing, but I did fire up the compressor and blast the hell out of every crevice I could as well as the battery area under the seat. And it helped! This morning was chilly enough to make the battery power unhappy, even after charging all night, and that’s to be expected. But I only had minor hitchy-surgy moments and didn’t have to go through contortions to feed and get my paddocks picked!