97 E-Z-Go TXT; intermittent current to motor

[7milesout]

Hey guys - I've been waiting for a couple months to catch this cart "in the act" of failing. This cart has been converted to 48V about 3 years ago. It has always worked just fine, very fast. Had new batteries then. The batteries work and charge just fine. The range is plenty long too.

My son had been telling me that sometimes it would go, then just not go any more. And he said he won't drive it to school any more because it's embarrasing when it flops on it's face in front of his friends. In the last couple months, it had never done this with me ... until this morning as I attempted to drive it to work to see if it would do as my son described. It went about 50 feet along the driveway, then just stopped pulling as if I took my foot off the pedal. Glad it did it in the driveway. Nothing I could do to make it go again. It usually just takes time after it does this (like an over-night sit) and then it works just fine, for a while. And, when it works, it works just fine, and goes like stink, nearly 30 mph.

After it quit going this morning, I rolled it back to the garage and messed with it for a few minutes. All was quiet, so I could hear the solenoid, as I pushed down on the pedal, the solenoid would click ... making you think it would pull iminently. But it just wouldn't. And you could then push on-off the go pedal like an organ grinder, no more clicking. But wait 2 to 5 seconds with the pedal out, and then the solenoid would click again (more like the clunking type of click when letting off the pedal).

Then I noticed, if I pushed the pedal (and let off) I would get the immediate click of the solenoid when first pushing, and as I sat quietly with the pedal off, I could wait 3 to 6 seconds and consistently the solenoid would clunck back. All with no motor turning.

This past weekend, before this happened, in order to help me understand what is going on, I connected leads to the motor just in case I ran into this problem (and luckily did this morning). And then I attached my multi-meter to those leads. I figured it would at least tell me, that when this problem was happening, if I turned on the multi-meter I would know if voltage was being applied to the motor. If no voltage, the motor was not the problem. If voltage but no movement, then the problem was the motor. When I turned on the voltmeter this morning, the voltage remained at 0. I had tested this when I first hooked it up this past weekend and it read voltage from the motor just fine. Even with the solenoid clicking, no voltage.

So the problem is NOT the motor. I'm not an electrical guy, so fellas, please offer up some advice. But try not to go too far over my head! I want my son to be able to drive this to school. It would free up my wife and I having to pick him up from after-school activities.


7milesout