Melex 512 Goes Into Reverse But Won't Move Forward

[LDJAutoBody]

Hi. First may I say this is a great forum...really glad I found it!

A buddy of mine has asked me to help him with a Melex 512 electric golf cart that he recently purchased. The cart moves in reverse, but not forward. The previous owner had it checked out at a local cart repair and the technician told him it was the potentiometer switch. I'm a little concerned that the previous owner knew what the problem was, but chose not to fix it at that time! He claims he decided to purchase a new cart instead and agreed to sell the Melex for $100...sounds a little "fishy" to me, but...I'm not the one out the $100!

I am not familiar with Melex, although I have worked on other electric motors. I am an auto body tech by trade, but I'm also a "fair to middlin" mechanic... However, I'm more of a car and motorcycle guy...electric motors are not really my forte! I was hoping that someone might be able to shed some light on this problem. I have located a pot sw. for it, but would like some opinions before I go out and start replacing parts at random. Again...the cart will go in reverse, but not forward. The motor sounds good and runs pretty smooth. No other apparent problems.

Anyone have any ideas or suggestions? Thanks in advance for any information. I appreciate it!

Larry B.
LDJ Auto Body & Collision
Gibsonton, FL

[pargo_fan]

Not positive, but if it moves in reverse the pot and controller are working. Check the forward/reverse switch. May have some burn't contacts. If the switch assy is in decent shape replace the burn't contact studs.
Robbie

[LDJAutoBody]

Hi Robbie and Happy Father's Day!

Thanks for your input...and I tend to agree with you. If the cart moves at all, the potentiometer sw. isn't the problem. The other problem is that when he bought this cart, it had no batteries with it and I had to locate a set of 6 (6V) batteries. The previous owner kept the batteries as spares for his new cart. I hated to see him spend the money on the batteries before we really knew what the problem was...but, I guess he can transfer those to a different one if this one doesn't work out for him.

My next question is there is a sw. that was mounted along side of the pot. sw. box. I looked up the part online and it appears to be a "limit" switch. Can anyone tell me about that switch? The switch is a Honeywell WZ-2RW8225551T-S. It is located in the same area as the "forward/reverse"sw. and I am wondering if that might have something to do with this problem. Although the pot. sw. box is a totally enclosed box and is in pretty decent shape, the Honeywell sw. was not inside any kind of enclosure and looks pretty oxidized and the contacts definitely need to be cleaned. I am working on that now, but thought maybe someone might be able to shed a little more light on what this sw. does?

Sorry for the "basic" questions here, but like I said, I'm not really an electric motor expert at all...give me some gasoline and some spark plugs and I can get you anywhere you need to go! LOL

Thanks for the help...look forward to hearing from you.

Larry (LDJ Auto Body)

[DevilKillerLB]

I'm the same as you LDG gasoline and spark plugs and i'm good.But i have a question mine is like your but it wont move backwards but will frontwards(Pain in the but to get off the trailer we had to pull it off with a four wheeler) We are getting a new charger for it so will we need any other things to fix it?

[LDJAutoBody]

Hi and sorry to hear you are having problems too!

Unfortunately, we have been very busy at our body shop and the golf cart was put on hold for the time being. We still have not fixed the original problem, however, if you read the threads prior to this one, there is another Melex owner that had the same problem that we had. I have not heard from her since the last time we spoke, (she had called me when she was here in Tampa for a visit from the island) and she was going to change out the last switch. She had actually come to the mainland to purchase it.

You might want to send her a message and ask her if that eliminated the problem. I am going to have someone take a look at ours again some time this weekend, and I'll post here if we find anything further.

Best of luck and please keep us informed if you get any further information. Apparently this problem is quite common, so I'm sure someone out here has a solution!