Rednecktified: My 86 Club Car

Scott H.

Well, I've had this thing for a while so I guess it's time that I started a build thread for it.


This is what I started with, a well used and beat up 36 Volt 1986 Club Car DS.

It wasn't pretty to look at (and still isn't), but the price was right and it matches me perfectly since we're both old, ugly, and beat up. After several trips to the stickies to go over wiring diagrams, asking questions, and a whole lot of time searching through threads, I finally got the old girl up and running once again.


I replaced the missing seat back with one of the seats Hookm was nice enough to give me and the rear tires with one of the larger sets I was given when I purchased the cart. Since the above pictures were taken, I've put a set of boat wheels on the front of it to level the cart out. I'll figure out a better set of rims and tires for it later.


I used the cart around here for just about everything I needed it for, but the "Toaster Oven Parts" were constantly giving me problems.


The last time the electrics broke was it for me, I was done fixing the old system. I needed the cart to be back up and running as soon as possible and have almost no money to spend on it right now, so I yanked the old stuff out and put in the complete electrical system from my 48 Volt 1998 Club Car DS with a completely trashed and unusable frame. If I could have afforded it I would have gone with one of Scottyb's conversion kits, but that's just not in the cards right now. I might eventually upgrade everything with a kit, but that'll be down the road when my budget allows that type of expenditure.

I know it wasn't the safest thing in the world to do, but it was getting dark so I zip tied the the V-Glide part way open and used the key switch to start and stop the cart for the test run. I rode around the yard a couple of times with the body just sitting on the frame and everything worked just fine. Now all I have to do is permanently mount the V-Glide, fix a pinched wire to the battery light, and put some new ends on the key switch and reverse buzzer because I just didn't like the way the old connectors looked.

Now that I know that once I finish the small jobs of the conversion and it'll be a running cart again, more upgrades will be done to it as I can, including rebuilding the light system and I think I'll finally break down and paint it.

More pictures and a better description of what I have done so far can be found on my web page. Please note that my web page is a work in progress and doesn't look the best right now.

-Scott H.

BGW

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Scott H.

I didn't get much done today because I've been ill, but the dash is done for now with new connectors on everything.

Now onto mounting the V-Glide and then I can get to the more interesting stuff.

-Scott H.

TheNewGuy

Nice project cart.

Ron


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essness

Well done Scott

Scott H.

Thanks, but it's still far from being done.

I had planned on having it moving under it's own power with everything working as it should by the time I came in for the night, but with the way I'm feeling I just couldn't keep going.

There's definitely more to come. If you haven't already, visit the web page I built and you'll be able to get a preview of what is to come.

I would type some of it out here, but I'm just not up to it right now.

-Scott H.

BumbleBee

Good Start Scott! being sick sucks! but trying work thru it doesn't always work out.... Rest up and get feeling better, then jump back in with both feet!

Get well soon! I will be watching!

Scott H.

Thanks, I'm definitely not doing much right now. I barely have the energy to get up once in a while actually. If I hadn't already gotten my Flu shot, I'd swear that is what I have.

-Scott H.

Scott H.

Once again, the cart sat today while I was drafted into taking my mother shopping in the masses because I have a truck and she was going to need it. It turned out that what she wanted was out of stock so I get to look forward to going once again next week.

Oh well, the weekend is here so I should be able to get the rest of the wiring done unless something else comes up to stop me from being able to work on the old girl.

-Scott H.

Scott H.

Well as things go, life got in the way of my working on the cart again until today. While everything was doing it's best to keep me from working on the cart, I picked up some marker lights to replace the broken ones that a previous owner of the cart tried to superglue to the housings. I also picked up some stainless bolts to replace some of the rusted original body hardware and to repair the snapped off bolts on the rear tail lights.

I didn't get any pictures of the tail light I fixed, but I still have one more to do so I'll take them then.


The lights were replaced in the past with driving lights by a previous owner and only needed new bulbs, but the marker lights came from the boat section of WalMart. The reason I went with the boat ones is they have black housings where the ones I found in the car section had chrome housings. I just didn't want the chrome to stick out like a sore thumb on an otherwise black light housing. Besides, they were cheap enough, and I can use them elsewhere on the cart when I finally break down and replace the trashed light housing.


They're designed to bolt to the side of a metal trailer to make the ground and that just won't work on a plastic light housing, or a golf cart at all for that matter, sooooo...


I removed the ground pin from the mounting hole...


Bent the pin down through the hole in the housing...


And crimped the pin so it would fit in a crimp style wire connector.

Once that process was done I mounted the housing, ran the wire down the old light location, and snapped it into the housing.


Here's a completed light housing, ready to mount to the cart once more. I'll write a better tutorial on how I did this and load it to my web page later to keep from bombarding the thread with pictures worse than I'm doing now.

UP Next: Adventures with the V-Glide.

-Scott H.

Scott H.

As I said in my last post, the V-Glide in this thing has decided to be a Pain in my... I'll stop there.

I finally got the micro switch throttle box to break loose from the corroded bolts that were holding it on the L bracket. Once the box was sitting on the parts pile, I used my saws all to cut the bracket down to where I needed it, lined up the V-Glide, marked the mounting holes and drilled them, and bolted the V-Glide into place.


All went well and was solid as a brick until... When I rolled the cart on it's side to adjust the throttle linkage from the pedal side, the board I was using to keep the cart from rolling completely over decided it was going to slip, go between the frame rails, and take a good swipe at the V-Glide as the cart fell back onto it's wheels. I'm just glad I wasn't under it when it fell.


Well, now it's taking after it's name for real! I zip tied the cracked piece of junk on there so I can still use the cart until I can afford to replace the complete unit. One mount is broken off and the other is cracked badly, but it'll hold still for the most part. It's not like I'm going to constantly be hitting full throttle in my yard anyway.

It's supposed to rain for the next couple of days so I'll be taking a break from working on the cart since I have to roll it outside to put the cart on it's side. There just isn't enough room in my garage to work on it and have my 65 Nova and the 68 Mustang that I'm working on in there too.

-Scott H.