1985 Gas Club Car DS "warm up" mods.

[Barrysuperhawk]

Ok, my 1985 DS is fairly cold blooded. I adapt to this by flipping the magic switch under the seat, putting it in neutral, squirt some ether and then run the motor for a couple of minutes. This process is effective, but a pain in the buttocks. I want to modify my buggy so I can warm it up without having to lift the seat, and ideally without having to sit in the seat at all. For a while I considered wiring up some type of stick on block heater pad, but I doubt that would work well enough to be worth the power drain.

I think I will have to figure out how to activate the magic switch (that lets motor run in neutral). I also think a manual throttle/choke might be nice so I could get away from having to sit in the seat while it warms. That would also allow me to more easily control the rpm than my current method of mashing on the throttle... Last, spraying ether into the outside of the choke box isn't enough to get it to start, I typically have to pull off the air hose to get more ether where its needed.

I do have 2 unused electrical switches, both a momentary on switch installed in the bulkhead, as well as the foot activated switch that I think was for some lights but isn't now. I figure as long as I am messing with wires, I might as well put some lights on the buggy too so even if I don't find a use for the unused switches for the warm up project....

So, what are your thoughts on this project?

[CP241]

I think I’d start by giving it a good tune up, carb cleaning, and check valve adjustment. In those motors the valve lash is pretty liberal, something like .030” but being that it’s 30+ years old it could be quite worn.

I’ve only had a couple carts with the flathead motors, but both would fire right up with just a bump of the choke button even on a cold day. If you’re having to constantly go through that much effort every time, before trying to hack out some workarounds, I’d start by fixing what’s wrong with the engine first, because something ain’t right.

[Springbok]

I agree with CP241. I have two KF82 flathead carts (a '90 and an '87) and both with start pretty well in cold weather.