84 Marathon questions

rlw

Well...

I've gone and done it. Received my new battery trays last week. Took an angle grinder and cut out what was left of the old rotten battery trays. The lips that hold the new trays (towards the front of the cart) are rusted badly - worse on the driver and passenger side (rotted through on the outside). I'm going to have a friend weld some angle iron to the frame so we'll have something to weld the trays to. The white stuff in the pix is dried naval jelly (so-called rust remover).

Here's the outside passenger compartment lip:



And the driver side lip:



I'm also building my own 4 gauge cables. I picked up a 20' 4 gauge jumper cable (for less than the cost of plain 4 gauge battery cable at a local auto parts store), and a box of 5/16" 4 gauge copper lugs (40, total). I'll be crimping, soldering, and covering them with heat shrink. These lugs are closed at the bolt end, so I'm hoping corrosion will be kept to a minimum.

This cart has the rear end where the motor protrudes into the battery compartment. I've measured the lengths of the cables from the throttle switch to the resistor, and the cables from the FNR switch to the motor, solenoid and BR- battery connection.



I noticed there are two cables labelled "4" on the throttle switch. One goes to the #4 connection on the resistor, and another goes to the A1 connector on the motor.

Question 1: Instead of running two cables, can I just run a cable from post 4 on the throttle to A1, then a cable from A1 to the #4 connection on the resistor assembly? That would save about 2 feet of cable, and seems to me to be more efficient.

Question 2: Does anyone have a PDF of the manual that covers the '84 Marathon? I've got an '85 gas cart manual (good for body and suspension info), and an 89-95 gas/electric manual (kinda close to the '85, but different arrangement on the rear end/motor/resistor assy).

Questions 3-6: What are the procedures for removing the FNR switch assy, throttle switch/solenoid assy, and resistor? It looks like removing the FNR switch is fairly obvious - disconnect cables, remove the nut on the shaft, loosen the bolts on the flange at the seat cowl and slide the thing back.

FNR Switch:



Throttle/solenoid assy - disconnect cables, pedal linkage, and two bolts on the bottom.

The resistor looks like it would be easy if I could just get to it - I took off the panel behind the seat, and it looks like two bolts hold the assembly under the heat shield. Is that more easily removed from under the cart?



Any help is appreciated.

Thanks,

RLW

BGW

__________________
This advertising will not be shown in this way to registered members.
Register your free account today and become a member on Buggies Gone Wild Golf Cart Forum

sryan

I have an '82 that I'm in the process of restoring. I'll try to answer your questions the best I can.

Question 1: Instead of running two cables, can I just run a cable from post 4 on the throttle to A1, then a cable from A1 to the #4 connection on the resistor assembly? That would save about 2 feet of cable, and seems to me to be more efficient.

There are two issues I can think of that make 'daisy chaining' these cables a negative. If you re-configure the way you describe it will cause all the current for both the resistor and motor to run through the single cable to the switch. That cable will get a lot hotter in this configuration. In addition, there will be two connections through which the motor current will pass through. Even in a great connection that twice the junctions to produce voltage drop at the motor. Even clean soldered connections have more resistance than wire. On a cable end there's the connection from the wire to the terminal and then from the terminal to the device.


Question 2: Does anyone have a PDF of the manual that covers the '84 Marathon? I've got an '85 gas cart manual (good for body and suspension info), and an 89-95 gas/electric manual (kinda close to the '85, but different arrangement on the rear end/motor/resistor assy).

I have not been able to find this manual. If you try to purchase it I'll warn you that EZ-GO manuals grandfather a lot of information from previous manuals. The local dealer has a complete set and I've watched the parts guy cursing while tracing forward and back trying to find the diagram for my cart.

Questions 3-6: What are the procedures for removing the FNR switch assy, throttle switch/solenoid assy, and resistor? It looks like removing the FNR switch is fairly obvious - disconnect cables, remove the nut on the shaft, loosen the bolts on the flange at the seat cowl and slide the thing back.

The FNR switch comes off after removing the to bolts on the frame bracket.

On my 1982 the entire accelerator assembly comes out with the resistors attached to it. Yours may be different. On mine, you can disconnect the pedal rod by pulling the spring loaded endcap forward. Loosen the bolt holding it to the frame plate and the whole thing comes off resistors and all.

If you do take it apart, take a lot of care when re-attaching all the wiring. Test it with an ohmmeter BEFORE re-connecting the batteries. If you have a poor connection anywhere the design is such that it will result in imbalance in the current and can cause battery posts to melt and connections to weld. And MOST important (as you probably know) disconnect all the batteries and remove them from the cart if possible when you do all this stuff. It's easy to accidentally short batteries if you're working around them in such close quarters.

The contacts on the accelerator are likely burned. I used a sanding block to clean them up. The same is true of the spring loaded electrode that wipes across them. Mine were seriously pitted and getting them flat and clean smoothed out the acceleration quite a bit.

One last comment, you indicated that you are using jumper cable wire. What most people use (and the reason the cables are so darn expensive) is welding wire. The individual conductors are 26 ga or less which makes the cable flexible and very low resistance. Some jumper cable's have fine conductor wire but not most of them.

I decided to replace mine with a solid state controller because I will be using mine in the woods and don't want to start any forest fires.

Hope this helps.. and good luck.

Steve

rlw

Steve,

Thanks for the info. I'll take your advice and use an extra 2 feet of cable from the throttle switch to the resistor.

As to looking for a PDF, I found some images of wiring diagrams that fit my cart up in the stickies. That should give me what I'm looking for, wiring wise.

The resistor sits over the rear axle on my cart. Looks like two bolts hold it onto a bracket attached to the heat shield. I'll get one of my beefy friends to help me tip the cart on its side so I can get to it.

My accelerator assembly looks pretty good - not too badly burned, but I wanted to take it out before I weld on the angle iron. I may clean it up some once I get it out.

I'd like to replace the whole resistor setup with a solid state controller some day, but the prices for that stuff are more than I paid for the cart. I plan to spend this summer using the ugly thing as-is, then maybe upgrade over the winter. I'd love to find someone who's upgrading to some kind of supercalifragilistic Alltrax controller, and will sell me his old controller. All I'll need then is some kind of pot-box retrofit I can bolt onto the accelerator assembly and I'm good to go!

Thanks again for your response...

RLW

sryan

Not many people restore these older carts because of the cost of the solid state upgrade. I got my cart for very cheap and it had a new set of batteries and tires. I've completely replaced all the bearings, bushings, sandblasted the body and frame, and powder coated and painted everything. Most stuff I did myself. The controller was by far the most expensive. I'll have around $1k into the re-build but it will be like new. And I like the older buggies. I should box up all my old parts and send them to you. Keep in touch cause there's not many people who work on carts as old as ours.

Steve

sryan

BTW, I had the same problem with my battery tray's and cross beam. I welded in some L-channel along the cross beam as a base to weld the new tray's to.
The center piece was not too bad but both sides were completely gone like yours. It was pretty easy to do and is really solid.

Mine also had corroded completely through the kick panel. I made a new body panel from sheet metal.

Steve

rlw

Yeah, the center section of the cross-beam on mine is in pretty good shape as well. I'm still going to weld on some angle iron there, just to make sure.

Mine wasn't in as good of shape as yours. It looks like someone repeatedly sideswiped stuff with it - the rear fenders are beat to hell, and the front cowl passenger side is ever-so-slightly crumpled. I'm not planning on making it pretty, just getting it running for the summer. I don't care if it's ugly, just want something to use on my property and over to the neighbor's pond house.

My neighbor has a 2002 PDS cart. He replaced all 6 batteries this spring, and 5 of his old ones were better than the ones I got with my cart. He gave me his, and used mine as his core returns. Hopefully, his old ones will last me through the summer and fall. There's a guy about 3 miles west of me that refurbs Trojans for $50 a pop. I'll talk to him when these peter out.

What kind of leftover parts do you have? I'd be willing to pay shipping if you just want to get rid of 'em... (depends on what you want to get rid of! ;^)

RLW

76sporty

good luck and congrats on the marathon build. i have done all of this(81 marathon)and trust me it never ends