Smoking Cart

[08harleyrider]

New to the golf cart world and this site has been a great help so far. I bought a 1997 TXT 290cc non running cart, took motor apart and found a bad rod, replaced rod, put motor back together (engine looked like it was just rebuilt, no lip, very clean ect, did not changed anything but rod) and cart is smoking, checked spark plug and they were pure black, replaced plugs. When I run cart with choke 1/2 closed it does not smoke as bad, adjusted choke to stayed somewhat closed and finally got plugs to burn clean, took carburetor apart and clean out, blow it out with air, still same thing, smokes when running, not near as bad when choke is wide open. I have had to change oil a couple of time because it smelled like gas and was broke down real bad. Any ideas or help would be appreciated. Aslo does anyone know what size main jet this cart should have in it?

[StoveBolt]

any oil in air cleaner box?

[08harleyrider]

When I run 1/2 choke, very very little, just like a couple drops, but it will backfire every once and a while with 1/2 choke

[ez go go]

Could you have possibly damaged a ring or left one out? How does your compression look. It should be affected with a damaged ring.

[08harleyrider]

Thank you for trying to help, I will give a little more details. Compression on one cylinder is 172 and other is 175. When I took motor apart I never took rings off pistons, they looked very clean so I didn’t remove, just cleaned. The rod bolts backed off and cap was in bottom off case when I got the cart, crank needed to be cleaned a little but when I put new rod on it was very smooth to spin on crank. I took choke all the way off again and run for a hour or so, I just looked and there was a little bit of oil in air filter, so I cleaned plugs and put choke back too ½ closed, very little smoke (livable amount) and plugs are running clean again. I have talked to a few people and they all say that when I put choke on it should die or run like crap which I agree with, but this is how it runs the best. With choke on it is not running hot or anything. When I had the carburetor apart I could tell someone has had the main jet out before because they did not use the right size screw driver and marked it up a little. Here are some things that I can think of, bad rings, bad valve stem guides, bent/bad valves, cracked head, bad carburetor. I am running out of things to try. Thanks for any help/ideas.

[ez go go]

For a 295 172 and 175 is great compression. This kinda compression should eliminate rings, head and I would think guides and valves. With comp. that good I would think you are gettin a good seal on the valves and the guides are probably fine.. If the jet is marked up kinda bad the prior owner may have swapped jets after messing the original up during extraction. Running your choke usually means a lean condition so I'm leanin toward carb. issues ( trash, dirt, varnish ), fuel line blockage, fuel pump or the pickup in the tank. Kinda scratchin my head but maybe these are some things to check that might help. Good Luck

[08harleyrider]

I am making small adjustments at a time to close the choke more and it is running better with less smoke but I will get to the point to where it will run bad. It developed a small backfire when taking off so I took the (assuming) idle air jet on top of the carb out 1 full turn and that got rid of the backfire. The cart is running great and fast. The governor was at full speed so I had to turn it way down, it is running at 13 mph. It’s a good thing I got this cart real cheap or I would be really mad at this point. Once again Thanks for all the help

[08harleyrider]

Well this is it. made one more little adjustment on Carb and it started to smoke so I backed it off and running great with very little smoke but some smoke. I am thinking that who ever had this cart before bored out the main jet. What smoke is left might be because I didnt change the rings or valve stem seals are bad. Well at least I wont have bugs following me lol.