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Gas EZGO Gas EZGO Marathon, Medalist, TXT and RXV.



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Old 07-03-2019, 05:46 PM   #1
orangecart75
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Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Kingsport, TN
Posts: 89
Default John's Cart

So I joined here many years ago. In fact I think it was 2011. My dad had limited mobility. Diabetes and neuropathy took their toll on the old man. I bought this cart because I thought it would be a great idea to help him get around. It had issues pulling hills (he lived on a hill) and the battery wouldn't stay charged So it ended up back in my possession to sit until I could figure it all out. I'd like to thank everyone that has helped thus far.

Life got busy and the cart never got fixed. Dad died and we eventually moved away. I finally have a shop I can work out of and my crawler takes up the majority of the space. The cart lives in there too. My wife told me to focus on a single project instead of trying to take on multiple ones all at once I figured I'd give it a shot and see if she was right. I chose dad's old cart as the first

So here we are. I've got a 1985 Marathon. The plan is to tear it down and repaint it. Since I'm trying to save money I'm going to be doing this the el cheapo way. Also, in homage to dad I'll be using spray paint for the majority of the work We'll see how awful it will be. Honestly, at this point I'd say anything is an improvement. What's that? Not enough pics? I agree.
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Old 07-03-2019, 06:03 PM   #2
orangecart75
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Join Date: Mar 2011
Location: Kingsport, TN
Posts: 89
Default Re: John's Cart

So, at first glance it's not terrible I guess but it needs work. I guess I should do what any good project manager would do. I began by tearing everything apart and then putting it in a pile. I labeled nothing and used my keen memory to remember how it all went back together.

The pics will be scattered. Some times you get into the zone and don't stop to snap pics. First off was the top and nose cone. I like that I have a metal body. Mainly because I'll be able to weld new studs on to the places where I snapped three off I've heard tale of a mystery fluid that can help that from happening. I'll look for that later.

Next was the dash. That was all very easy for the most part. If anyone has the size of the plastic rivets I need to put it back I would appreciate it... Also, the brake pedal came out along with the rubber mat floor. Next up was the engine compartment. The whole thing is a mess. The old foam was sloughing off, the battery tray and gas tank floor was rusting badly, the wiring looked atrocious and I just wanted to hit the reset button.

So I tore the foam out and everything that was bolted down. More on the engine later

I'll spare you the details on how I got it out of the shop since the crawler is on jack stands and can't move but needless to say I got it out and up to the driveway so I could pressure wash it.
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Old 07-03-2019, 06:15 PM   #3
orangecart75
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Default Re: John's Cart

Thanks to some of you here I was able to figure out how to remove the rear fenders. It's the damnedest thing. It's held on by bolts who knew? So... with those babies removed I moved to the back and pulled the back...thing... box... off.

I ordered a 32 oz container of Ospho rust converter off Amazon and started lacing into the beast. I coated just about everything I could reach. This should have been my first clue on how long this would take. After application you had to wait 24 hours. Not that I didn't see some wait time ahead of me but literally everything I've done requires a 24 hour wait time for some reason

Whatever. Tis life. So I started by doing some of the smaller things. I began by taking the air cleaner apart and freshening it up a bit. Then I took one of the smaller panels and began working on it for paint.

The PO who I bought it from had given it to his son to have fun with. It's quite obvious he had a grand time. First, he was from TN and spray bombed it orange which had faded to a sweet shade of sherbert. A very helpful member here suggested aerosol paint stripper. I went back to the paint supplies in the back room and saw that I had some old Strippeez or something like that. Since, I'm a cheapo I figured this may save me a few bucks. To be truthful I had like three kinds and this one was the best. You can see the before and after.

It worked so well in fact I started on one of the rear fenders
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Old 07-03-2019, 06:16 PM   #4
cart around
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Default Re: John's Cart

Now that you have easy access, you should pull that driven clutch. Give it a good cleaning, and check the condition. If you can squeeze the two plates with one hand, it is bad. I mean any movement at all. That clutch was most likely the hill climbing issue.

You can put it all together, and test the charging system later, or you could order a voltage regulator now. That one would be a toss up.

If you want to go faster than 12mph, now would also be a good time to remove the governor.
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Old 07-03-2019, 06:29 PM   #5
orangecart75
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Default Re: John's Cart

I continued to work with the other panels to get all the old paint off. I found that the original color was that standard issue light tan. Someone (PO?) had painted it yellow in a couple spots and then his son obviously didn't fancy that and painted it orange. Fortunately all that God awful stuff was gone but it exposed some...things....

This ole girl had been abused and couldn't find the hotline number to report it. This thing is beat, banged and bruised. I don't think I have a straight panel on the whole thing. "Dents O'plenty" should be this thing's name. Too bad dad got first dibs

I can't lie. I've had a couple of body shop classes years ago. Does that mean I know what I'm doing? Absolutely not but it's like riding a bike, right? I tried my hand at a little light bondo work. Oh yes, this is just how I remember it As much as I want this to be semi-nice I think I'm going to have to live with some dents. Honestly, the kids will get a hold of this and probably jump it like Bo Duke. It's probably best to leave the cosmetics at a minimum.

I'm not sure if you noticed it or not but the rear fenders have more holes than Swiss cheese. I have no idea why but they do. The PO put some pieces of wood on top of the fenders and called it good. I'm thinking of doing the same. I also came up with my color. Dad wanted a Hummer at one time and he wanted a red one. So this ole girl will be red with black trim. I figure he'd like that.
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Old 07-03-2019, 06:31 PM   #6
orangecart75
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Default Re: John's Cart

Quote:
Originally Posted by cart around View Post
Now that you have easy access, you should pull that driven clutch. Give it a good cleaning, and check the condition. If you can squeeze the two plates with one hand, it is bad. I mean any movement at all. That clutch was most likely the hill climbing issue.

You can put it all together, and test the charging system later, or you could order a voltage regulator now. That one would be a toss up.

If you want to go faster than 12mph, now would also be a good time to remove the governor.
I believe I ordered one of those long ago and put it on along with a new starter/generator. The governor is long gone. In fact it came with the cart unhooked.
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Old 07-03-2019, 06:40 PM   #7
orangecart75
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Default Re: John's Cart

Not gonna lie, I've lost track of the true timing on these improvements. I'll make them up and we can all pretend that they are chronologically correct.

I really want to lift it up. I did some research and found how to. So I went underneath to start he process of removing the old shocks. Everything went pretty good. I did notice the driver side front shock mount was bent down about 2". I grabbed a big wrench and got that back somewhat straight. I then proceeded to spray bomb the works with some gloss black. I then moved around back and pulled those shocks too. After that I jacked it up and removed the coils so I could access the rest of the mounts and whatnot. After that, you guessed it, some glass black for the frame rails, mounts and whatever else I felt needed it.

Next, I turned my attention to the gas tank. This thing looked gross. All I did was wash it with some Dawn and a brush. It actually came out pretty good IMO. I hit a couple spots with a magic eraser for good measure.
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Old 07-03-2019, 06:49 PM   #8
orangecart75
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Default Re: John's Cart

I rolled the chassis up to the driveway to take a look at the engine compartment. The way it was before I couldn't hardly see what was what. It was dark and uninviting. I figured I'd rectify this by painting it white Yeah, maybe it's not the best color but I figured it help with seeing everything better.

Also, I'm not as concerned with perfection in this area. 95% of the time it won't even see the light of day. So I just draped a plastic sheet over the rear and taped up some holes. The result was as anticipated

I put my air cleaner back together. It came out looking pretty sweet. One thing I ran into was when I taped the old sticker on the front the clear film on the sticker came off when I pulled the tape off. Great, now it's sticky and will get covered in dirt and dust. I bought some clear coat a long time ago so I just sprayed it over the top section of the air cleaner to seal the old sticker and give it a little more shine.

Lastly, I went down to where I've been storing the cart out of the rain and bolted some of the pieces back in. I got the gas tank back along with the newly painted heat shield. I also put the air cleaner in.
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Old 07-03-2019, 06:59 PM   #9
orangecart75
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Default Re: John's Cart

One of those pictures reminded me of another thing I did. As you can see, the rear box thingy is in the cart. I went and bought some undercoating from Lowe's. I painted the backside of the box with white to match the engine compartment. I then hit the remainder of the box with the undercoating. I'm not going to lie. The Rust-oleum undercoating is not a winner. The first can had a boozed up nozzle and I ended up tiger striping the box. Then I put a big sag in it Since momma didn't raise no fool I went an bought another can to finish the job

Yeah, well it sprayed better but the undercoating is soft. More on that in four sentences. I also wanted to coat the underside of the rear fenders. I figured that where the majority of mud and junk would get slung. In hindsight I would not do this until last. I did it first and ended up having to tape it all off underneath when I painted the outside of the fender. When I peeled the tape off guess who tagged along So now I've got to go back and touch up a few spots.
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Old 07-03-2019, 07:14 PM   #10
orangecart75
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Default Re: John's Cart

So falling back on my body shop class knowledge I decided I'd paint a little. I think I've done a pretty good job of sanding down the surface, priming and sanding again. I used a orbital sander with a 320 pad. I speak from experience when I say that Rust-oleum primer isn't a fan of this method. The pad gums up and leaves hard goobers on the surface which are then dealt with by picking them off ultimately scratching the surface and forcing you to re-prime the area thus creating another looooong wait time before you can sand again. My results were not coming out as anticipated to say the least Like dad said the time I painted my crawler for the first time and the results were less than desirable..."son, it's not a show car". True, dad. True. However, if I'm going to put this level of effort into this I've got to have a better result than what I'm getting. Off to YouTube...

No one did what I was doing but they reminded me that I'm a moron. Why I wasn't wet sanding eluded me. Plus, one of the videos suggested it when using spray cans. Fair enough. I went to Lowe's and got some 600 grit paper for this purpose. Sure enough works like a champ. Put a couple drops of dish soap on the paper and when mixed with the wet surface it breaks down the surface tension of the water and makes it super slick. Now that I learned my lesson, the primer was coming out pretty good but it was still highlighting all the dents and bumps. No matter, I shall forge ahead.

The paint is bright to say the least. I tested it on a small panel and it definitely pops. The downer is that just like in those videos you will see some orange peel on the finished project. Once again, I'm not a fan. I did have some 1500 grit in my possession from another project so I decided to wet sand the paint to help smooth it out some. Using the same technique (soap and water) the results were pretty good. At this point, I put another coat on the fender. I was really surprised at how fast this coat dried plus the finish is a hell of a lot smoother. Yes, yes. This will be most satisfactory.
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