Club Car DS, climbing hills

[David Maner]

I'm a mushroom forager from hell. I used to only go by foot but as I've aged (68 in a few days) and my breathing isn't so good, (COPD,) any more so I opted to buy a pretty good used DS. I added a 6 inch lift kit but I had to go back to the original springs as the ones in the lift kit were too stiff and about crippled me from the rough trails and not trails I travel. Any way now I'm about at a 4 inch lift with 22 inch tires.
This is not what I’m wanting to talk about though.
At first with stock tires this cart wouldn't go up hills worth a **** and some not at all but that didn't matter as the cart was too low to the ground, hence the lift kit. After the lift kit and bigger tires it was jerky on take off and was worse on the hill climbing so I got to looking at my options for correcting that. One thing I noticed was that the belt as it was didn't take up until it was about half way up the drive pulley so I was trying to take off in 3rd or 4 gear equivalent of an eight speed tranny. I look for a shorter belt but that wasn't the answer as I wasn't having any luck with that but I did notice that the motor mount bolts were in slotted holes so I slid the motor forward until the belt was just barely loose, any tighter and it made the bottom roller in the drive clutch squeal so I back it up a tad. Now when I rev the motor up the belt takes up down right next to the bottom of the drive clutch. now I can go up the hills with no problems and still have my top end. Oh I had to readjust the governor rod from the rear end so the motor wouldn't be over revving. Any ways there were still some very steep hills I wanted to go up that I could tell the belt was slipping so I purchased a heaver spring for the driven clutch but it was made for the new aluminum clutch and man o man that fixed my hill climbing but it took away my top end and made the motor have to run at a much higher rpm when I was just barely moving along so that was not the answer. I had a clutch out of a '96 club car and its an aluminum clutch where the one on my '86 is steel so they were made totally different plus it was dished out pretty bad. I noticed that the material that the spring was wound out of was bigger in diameter but the over all diameter of the spring was the same so I take it out and find that its not only stiffer but its about an inch longer, ie taller, so I replace my heavy duty spring that was too much and really not made for the '86 clutch and put this one from the '96 in and now I can go up any hill that I come too and still have my top end and the beauty part is now at a walking speed as I'm going at much of the time I'm barely off idle same as with the spring/clutch motor transmission adjusted distance setup that i had found worked good for me.
The secret to climbing hills is to adjust the distance between the motor and the transmission/rear end to where when the drive clutch takes up the belt is at the very bottom of the clutch not half way up the face of the sheave. My top speed with the motor running at 3800 rpms is 19 mph, checking with a gps.
Morel season is just around the corner. My wife insisted I add a winch to the cart, for health reasons, so I'll finish that job this morning. I have to go through a lot of washouts and many of them have washed out since last year so I'm blazing new trails, so far so good but the winch gives me another level of confidence that I didn't have previously. 2500 lb badlands winch from harbor freight on sale for 56 bucks and change, remote control and complete with roller fairhead.
I can go places where my brothers Kawasaki mule won't even get close to going, no comparison in the two. I can turn shorter, go up steeper hills but he can run off and leave me on the flats. I don't care about the top speed though as no where I go can I go at top speed. Except when I'm driving around town but what the hey I can live with 19 mph.

[villebacker]

Good job! Persistence paid off.

[Springbok]

Nice!

[BigTonyB]

Good job! Now you have the best of both worlds. I just installed the heavy spring in my drive clutch, and am very happy, but still need more torque when carrying a passenger up hills. I'll try looking at belt adjustment, like you've done.
Thanks for sharing!

[miker]

nice job sounds good

[David Maner]

I keep the rpms on the engine as low as I can at the start of the big hills too and that helps with no matter how much of a load I have on my buggie. My brother was having problems and he was trying to get a run at the hills and that was what I tried first but then I noticed that when I stopped making forward progress and I let up on the accelerator and let the cart roll backwards a tad then give it the gas I'd start going again on up the hill as long as I didn't floor the gas pedal. Keep that belt as low in the drive pulley as you can where the gear ratio is closer to a 45 plus to 1 and you and the cart will top the hill with no problems no matter the load. A golf cart is set up for a golf course where there really isn't any big hills like we who traverse the out doors find ourselves in.
In fact a gas golf cart is designed to act as much as possible in its mannerism as an electric cart evidenced by the let up on the gas pedal and the engine shuts off and push the pedal down and it starts up and moves out with the belt taking up about half way up the face of the drive sheave where you're really not where the gear ratio between drive and driven is best suitable to climbing hills. Climbing hills and chasing after little white balls are worlds apart and have to be dealt with in a whole different manner.
This is what I'm finding to be the case here in my world. I've not spent a bunch of money having clutches reworked or any of that yet I'll put my cart, the way I have it set up, against any of the others with expensive clutch work or big *** engines. I've got two 23 hp Kawasaki engines that came out of a carryall that I purchased but really have no need for either as me and my 8.5 hp flat head kawasaki gets the job done and not make a lot of noise in doing it. With stock motor and muffler my cart isn't making much if any more noise than an electric one is as I putter along going from one mushroom honey hole to the next. Up and over hills and through the deep washouts in the valleys
My hunting grounds are the foot hills of the ozarks where Chert rocks rule. Not much mud as rocks don't make mud when they get wet.

[BigTonyB]

Interesting observation. I'll have to try your technique, next time.

[Springbok]

Let's see some pics of your cart Dave!

[David Maner]

http://www.buggiesgonewild.com/lifte...golf-cart.html

Here are the photos I posted a while back after the lift kit but long before the winch install.

I have some more photos of my cart in the wood but haven't run them through TinyPic yet to get the url for posting. I will do that soon..