Does this sound like the accelerator stop switch to you?

[yamahadude]

figured out what it was, had to get the local golf cart repair place take a look at it. it was the clutch! it was staying "in" for lack of better words so when you went to start from a stop there was tremendoud load on the motor already. going to be replacing the clutch (its the original one ) and replace it this week. Probably would have been obvious to many but i'm a cart newbie and never noticed it, doh!

[bigstik40]

After reading back through the posts, it makes sense!! It's like trying to start in high gear (engine not happy doing that). Glad you got it figured out, also a little more knowledge for us on this end. RAY

PS- Did you know that both clutches have a grease fitting that need a couple pumps of grease from time to time?? Maybe this is all that's needed to get you up and running! There are also rollers inside the drive clutch to check for flat spots.

[yamahadude]

Yep, I know about the grease fittings, and I've replaced the rollers before in another cart. According to the golf cart guy who looked at it the clutch is beyond repair. The cart itself is a 1996 and it has the original clutch in it. He put it in neutral and ran the motor and said it sounds real good though, so at least all of my work wasn't for nothing, haha! I think a lot of the things I did to the cart were worth doing anyway. It needed a new battery and a good cleaning up of the wiring and connections anyway.