Gas Turf carryall electrical problems?

[Jaypay131]

Hello all, I am new to the forum, and I am looking for a little/a lot of help. I work for a company that has about six carts around the complex. I Have been able to diagnose and fix all of the carts before this one. This is one a Carry all turf 2 that I am now at a total loss.

The "mechanic" before me worked on this cart and left it in pieces before I arrived. I was able to get everything back together by going off of another turf cart that we have. While working on the cart I discovered the starter/generator was bad, so we have replaced that along with the power regulator, and the solenoid. Once all of these items were replaced once we tried to turn the cart over, we would get the click of the solenoid but nothing past that. After a little hunting with a multimeter, we found that the ground strap from the starter/generator was bad. Once I replaced the ground strap and hooked the battery back up the solenoid popped instantly. No click nothing. I have gone over the wiring time and time again with nothing found bad. Every time I put a new solenoid on it blows almost immediately.

Can anyone give me any ideas of what to do from here? I'm sorry if this has been posted before but I have looked around a lot and haven't found anything that has pointed me in the right direction. This is my first post so if I missed any details, please let me know. Thanks again in advance for any advice. Have a great day!

[Fairtax4me]

What year is the cart?
Solenoid blows up or the fuse pops?
These solenoids are not universal and the cheapo solenoids from the jungle store or even one from an auto parts store will not work in these. You need to get one from a Club Car dealer.
On some of the gas carts there is a diode across the small posts of the solenoid which if it's bad will blow the fuse every time. It just looks like a small jumper on the two small posts. If it has that remove it and see what happens with it removed.

[Jaypay131]

First off thank you for the reply. I am unsure on the year of the cart, if you can tell me how to hunt that down I can get that information for you.

And as far as the blowing of solenoids, it is the solenoid itself blowing not the fuses.

We have two of the same carry all buggies and one is running one is not. I can take the solenoid off of the running unit and plug it into the non-running cart and it will blow as soon as the gas pedal is pressed. My boss orders the solenoids and from what I can tell they aren't "brand name" solenoids but I've never had this kind of trouble from them in the past with other carts. Thanks again for the help.

[CP241]

I’m a little unclear what you mean as well by “blowing solenoid”. Does the solenoid not click anymore? Does it click but not allow voltage/current to flow through the contacts to the starter generator? What happens if you put that blown solenoid back into another working cart?

I’m sure we can figure this out but need a better description of the actual failure mode first.

[Jaypay131]

Sorry for the unclear description. So, when I say it is "blowing the solenoid" I mean that normally if you put a voltmeter onto the two large post one as a constant current of a little over 12 volts and one has no current until the gas pedal is pressed. Once I hit the gas pedal for the first time with a "new" solenoid the current is constant in both of the large post as long as the battery is connected, and key is on. No more clicks just a buzzing sound. I'm hoping I'm explaining this well.

[CP241]

Let’s try this

Remove the “blown” solenoid. Put it on the work bench. Set your meter to continuity (beeeeeeeeeep) and attach your leads to the 2 big terminals. Should not beep.

Apply 12v to one of the small terminals, and ground to the other small terminal. It should click and (beeeeeeeeeep)

Let’s test the failed solenoid out of the cart and maybe can determine if the problem is something actually damaging the solenoid, or if you have a microswitch problem that sounds like it may be keeping it energized when you release the pedal.

[Jaypay131]

Alright, so as far as the continuity test on the large terminals there was no beep when connected.

When I connected 12 vols to the smaller terminals nothing happened at all. No beep or click.

I will also say when the solenoid blew it didn't happen until I pressed the gas pedal on the cart. Then I heard a sound that I can best describe as a sizzling.

Thank you again for all the help.

[CP241]

Just to make sure, you applied 12v to one of the small terminals and ground to the other small terminal?

What is the resistance between the two small terminals? Sounds like the coil inside the solenoid got cooked

With the solenoid disconnected from the cart, with key on and pedal pressed, you should have 12v on the blue wire and good ground on the orange wire. Can you confirm?

Also try hooking meter red to the blue wire and meter black probe to blue wire and step on the pedal. I’d be curious to see what the voltage reading is

[Jaypay131]

So yes, I applied 12v to one of the small terminals and ground to the other as instructed with no results whatsoever.

I will have to check the resistance between the two small terminals in the morning as I am on my way out the door luckily. (It has been a crazy day. I work at a pawn shop)

As for checking the wires as instructed above, I am not sure how to do this with the solenoid out of the cart. the cart just like our other carry all the positive terminal from the battery goes directly to one of the large posts on the solenoid. I'm not the best with electrical work but unless you are talking about doing a trick, I don't know I can't take these measurements. If you'd like photos of our working cart/broken cart let me know I can do any of that if you need as well. Thanks!

[CP241]

What the solenoid does is take a low current circuit (key switch, pedal switch, gear position switch) and turns that into a high current circuit to pass voltage between the battery and starter/generator.

There are 2 completely separate parts inside the solenoid. There’s a set of high current contacts (like a heavy duty switch) and a coil that acts as an electromagnet. It’s literally a bunch of copper windings. When the coil is energized it becomes a magnet, and pulls a contact closed that allows the high current switch to function. When you take power away from the coil, the contactor opens and current no longer flows through the high current contacts.

Measuring resistance between the small terminals will tell me if the coil inside the solenoid is in tact or shorted.

The solenoid being removed will have no impact on the orange and blue wires having ground and voltage. Obviously it’s not going to start or do anything but you should still have voltage and ground on those wires. Those are what tells the solenoid to close and start the cart.

So here is kinda where I’m at right now… I see 2 possible things right now, and trying to narrow down which direction we are chasing.

#1 something is damaging the contacts inside the solenoid on the high current side. Maybe a bad starter/generator or something along those lines

#2 the activation circuit has something wrong, and damaging the coil/electromagnet side of the solenoid.


Or it’s possible it’s a junk solenoid, but I’m kinda shelving this idea at the moment since you’ve taken a solenoid out of a cart that has been working perfectly fine and it instantly cooked it when installed in this cart.