1997 DS "jerking"

[Pierred]

Hi there.
A friend of mine bought a 1997 DS 48V directly from a golf club. He uses it on his camping ground. From the start it had problems, but he bought it "without warranty". (yeah, I hit hard on him after hearing that...)

Anyhoo, when he tried it at the golf club, he said that it acted as if it had a "jacob break" and was stalling when turning right. The repariman (or whoever was selling the car) simply unplugged a connector and he said "there, it's fixed.". Well, it doesn't "engine break" anymore, but stalls from time to time.
When going at very slow speed, it jerks, and when going at higher speed, it will sometimes starts to slow down and die. He would turn the power switch off then on and it will go again. All of this, or course, intermittently to make it the most easier to troubleshoot.
To mee, it seems to have some kind of "regenerator" option and what the guy did is unplug the function (the plug is located close to the motor). It has the "V-Slide" speed pot.

I haven't found any diagram with this "Regen" option. I do not have any test-points valued to check.
I believe it is either a pitted solenoid or a defective electronic controller.

All suggestions appreciated.

I know well my EZ-Go but don't know much about Club Car.

Regards,
Pierre.
1994 36V EZ-Go Marathon

[Michael Eddie]

Hi your golf cart will either have a V-Glide or a electronic controller. I think they only started putting electronic controllers on 97's so we will go with that. I would leave the Regen feature alone, but this cart is going to need some overhauling. Clean up the connections and batteries. Tug around on some of the connections to look for broken connections. Clean up the solenoid connections.

[Pierred]

Thanks Matti.
Well, it was probably modified or something (or I'm not identifying the V-glide correctly).

The accelerator is linked to a quarter-circled shaped device, about 6 inches wide. There's a wiper on the moving arm and about a dozen of "contacts" making the quarter-circle (which makes a variable resistor - I haven't checked the resistor value but monitored some voltage across it and it was steadily increasing and decreasing with each full span of the arm).

So, is this a V-glide or is this the "normal" look with an electronic controller?

AS for the connections, all the batteries ( 7 y/o he told me) and the relay contacts have been cleaned (The relay contacts were slightly corroded). He said that he saw some improvement after that, so yes, it might be connection related but I'm going to check the relay itself tomorrow or Wenesday.
The contacts on the controller and the motor appears to look fine but I haven't undone then to clean them. The controller has a huge harness coming up the back (close to a dozen of wires) and two screw-on connectors on the back and two more on the left. Note that I haven't been able to have a clean look at it.

I'll keep ya posted. Thanks again.
Pierre.

[Michael Eddie]

No a controller is a rectangle about 2 inches deep. So if it is a v shape it probably is a v glide. Check the contacts on your v-glide they are probably worn. 7 year old batteries are way too old. Usually well kept Trojans last at most 5 years. Think about replacing them soon and you will get more power and a longer run time.

[Pierred]

Just to leave a quick feedback: I cleaned all the battery posts and with it, check all the wires. One connector had once in his life, gotten very hot and was half melted. For the wire going from the last battery (-) to the drive controller, the connector on the battery end was dry, rusty and about 30% of the strands were broken. We replaced all the cables and he said that he noticed a real improvment on the cart performances... He said that the car hasn't "hesitated" since and hadn't stalled either.

Thanks for your help!

Pierre.

[Michael Eddie]

Cool thanks for the update.