1986 Club Car Won't Run

[jamkatt]

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I am hoping that I can get some ideas on what might be going on with a 1986 Club Car I recently purchased. I bought 6 new batteries yesterday and charged them for 14 hours as suggested. I got the wiring schematics and I believe that I have everything hooked up correctly. Double check my hook up with pictures I took before I unhooked the old batteries. Went out this morning to try it out and nothing. I didn't get ant indication that there was any power in the batteries through the cart. Anyone have any ideas what this could be. I was told that the cart ran the last time it was used but I do not know how long ago that was (I am guessing it was a while). Also the cart was stored outside. I am not super knowledgable on carts but I am willing to try to learn and fix things myself. I only paid $100 for the cart (bought from a coworker) and it did come with a charger. Do you think this is something I can fix or should I just sell it and buy a newer cart?

[dougmcp]

I don't think you should be entertaining selling the cart yet.
New batteries and charging before using is good.
Do you have a digital voltmeter? Without one it is nearly impossible to troubleshoot an electric cart.
If so, what is the total pack voltage or the voltage of each battery?

[jamkatt]

Each battery was 6.3 volts. My brother-in-law and I started trying to figure out what was wrong. We found a few wires that needed to be replaced so we did that. We also determined that the forward/reverse switch was broken (literally). I ordered a new one today once we found the problem. Only issue we had was that when we hooked the batteries back up we kept getting huge sparks when we tried to connect the negative cable. My brother-in-law works with industrial batteries and wiring all of the time (not golf carts though) and we could not figure out the problem because it was not sparking before we started. The forward/reverse switch fell to pieces when we were trying to replace a frayed cable. We put it back like it was but some of the plastic was gone and it no longer stayed together. Is there any chance this could have caused the sparks?

[dougmcp]

It's pretty hard to tell from afar/the internet what was causing your sparks. It is normal to get some small arcing when attaching the final cable but that is usually capacitors loading in the controller.
If your B-in-law works with batteries and wiring all the time, you should be able to figure it out with a meter. I would guess that of your F/R switch fell apart or some insulators fell out of it you might want to get a new one as all the power to the motor goes through that switch.
You should be able to find the wiring diagram for your cart in the resources section.

[rodallen]

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I am hoping that I can get some ideas on what might be going on with a 1986 Club Car I recently purchased. I bought 6 new batteries yesterday and charged them for 14 hours as suggested. I got the wiring schematics and I believe that I have everything hooked up correctly. Double check my hook up with pictures I took before I unhooked the old batteries. Went out this morning to try it out and nothing. I didn't get ant indication that there was any power in the batteries through the cart. Anyone have any ideas what this could be. I was told that the cart ran the last time it was used but I do not know how long ago that was (I am guessing it was a while). Also the cart was stored outside. I am not super knowledgable on carts but I am willing to try to learn and fix things myself. I only paid $100 for the cart (bought from a coworker) and it did come with a charger. Do you think this is something I can fix or should I just sell it and buy a newer cart?

Hi I would be looking at the solenoid,it appears that it is staying in thew open position.
Might need to test it .