Club Car Clutches: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

[Springbok]

There seems to be a lot of confusion surrounding Club Car clutches both drive (motor) and driven (transaxle), especially for those of us with older carts (1984-1996). I'm hoping we can pool our collective knowledge and get some definitive answers on this subject. I'm currently rebuilding a 1990 gas cart and will be shopping for both clutches shortly.

This graphic illustrates what I've come to understand. The graphic only deals with the appearance of the clutches (according to retailers and sellers all across the internet, the clutches on the right (in the tan box), despite having the same outward appearance from 1987.5-up, will have different internal components depending upon what cart you want to use them for, most notably rotation direction. Prices can also vary greatly as well).

As I understand it, the primary difference within the newer clutches that look like the ones in the tan box are the springs inside them. Is that correct?



I'm also noticing that a great many cart retailers are selling the driven clutch on the left (in the green box) as being for later models as well. But I've discovered an issue with mixing and matching clutches from the tan box to the green box, and that issue is belt alignment. The belt center-line on the older drive/driven clutch setup (green box) sticks out about 1/2" further from the side of the motor than the newer clutch setup (tan box).

See below image for reference (the clutch on the bottom is the clutch from the green box, and the clutch on the top is from the tan box):



Anyone have any other insights on this issue?