Surging speed and RPMs on my 2003 CC

[30-A rider]

My 2003 CC 48 volt sereis cart is my first cart and have had it only 4 weeks. Its your average stock cart that does 12 mph or so Im guessing. Recently it seems to have slowed down with its top speed. Today when driving it seems to surge a little with regards to RPM's and speed and I can feel and hear it a little. After narely making it up as paved hill that I usually have no probelms with it and after a mile past this it seemed to drive fastet than when my drive began. I typically plug it in for charging after each ride and my charger is brand new, and shuts off when fully charged.

Additional info is yesterday I had to go back and forth from Nuetral to reverese a few times to back it out of my garage even through the reverse buzzer came on each time. Also when taking off charger today before my drive the low battery light came back on a couple time but once I got going down the road it is gone and hasnt come back on yet.

cart has the original batteries and dated 2004 so Im sure they could be bad but until the past couple of days Ive watched over them keeping filled with distilled just over the lead plates.

Any ideas of my probelm here:

Can this just be dirty connections on the battery cables?
Is this a sign my batteries are about toast?

Any insight is appretiated gentlemen.

Scott

[30-A rider]

Oh in addition. Id say my top speed was only 50% approximately on the beginning of my drive today, and by the end of my trip it had increased but still not at full top speed.

[mikesmotortoys]

Sounds like a battery problem? Have you tested them at all?

[phasetim]

battery problems should make the car slower as the day goes by.. but it wouldn't be the first time batteries did screwy things..

your pedal may be wearing out causing your MCOR not to engage fully..

strange problem..... I'll be racking my brain on it..

[30-A rider]

Update. I cleaned all the battery cables, coonections etc last night. Plugged it in to the charger and shut off automatically after a couple hours like it should. No difference. Sometimes its fast, sometimes not. Barely made it up a hill today that I typically go up. Im gonna have ot go out an purchase some battery testing tools.

Phasetim, excuse my ignorance because this is my first cart and only 4 weeks old to me....what is an MCOR and how can I check to see if it is wearing out. This makes a little bit of sense to me because it seems almost as if I get off the pedal and roll to a stop and wait for a few seconds I can step on it again and then it works properly at times.

[phasetim]

MCOR is the speed control under the floorboard to the passenger side. All the testing procedures involve a multimeter and some pretty specific wiring tests. I usually just pop another in and see if it fixes it....

The MCOR has two systems one that turns the car on/off, and one that controls resistance, you can check resistance at the controller, I believe its the red and green wire if I'm not mistaken, but check the wiring diagrams here before you take my word on it (havent had coffee yet)

You can test the on/off feature, I would start at the solenoid and see if it's engaging the small post correctly..

[30-A rider]

Ok Phatesim thanks for the clarification.

Update as far as batteries go. I disconnected the cables from each and put a volt meter on each battery and each came up on the dot at 8 volts, and one just sloightly above. This is not on a fresh charged but just after driving on flat pavement with 2 passengers for about 5 miles.

Thnaks fr the replies to this point and any other input is greatly appretiated.

[phasetim]

Jack the rear of the car up and see what the batteries do when the car is driving, they may read a much lower number when loaded..

Just for info sake, what's your serial number? or at least the first half.

[30-A rider]

Ok so I read about "reconditioning batteries" and also saw a copy what is done on an ebay $9.95 download on how to do this. Here is what I did:

-With an auto suringe connected to a 6" piece of tube I sucked out battery electrolyte to the top of the plates on all the batteries.
-Then boiled 1 qt of distilled water ; removed from head and poured in 1 qt Epsom salts and stirred till disolved. Added back the solution till it was approximately 1/2 above the plates.

Having my cart for 4 weeks the only thing I did maitenance wise when I got it was checked the battery levels...so besides cleaning all battery connections and cables last night, I scrubbed the tops of my battery pack down with a soap and water solution to remove all the dirt and grime or 5 years on a golf coarse, then hosed it off. I then sprinkled baking sode on the tops of the battereis and then prayed then down futher with a baking sode and H20 solution.

When all is said and done I gotta tell you without even charging my batteries my acceleration has increased, it may have another 1-2 mph top speed and the surging and hesitation is gone!

So Im guessing this tells me I have some tired battereis and I better plan on a new set within 3-12 months.

Ok here is the bad thing. As result of my cleaning the reverse buzzer came on out of nowhere with the key off and the F-N-R switch in neutral? Not full volume but it was driving me crazy. So at the switch I took a chance at disconnecting each wore and found that the blue wire out of the switch which connects to the orange wire out of the harness stopped it! Thank Goodness! As result it doesnt make any noise when in reverse now. This is just fine with me but if anyone else drives my cart
I think iots a decent safety feature so any ideas why this happened? Maybe once everything dries out from my washing it will be fine?

Thanks for the input.

Also will post serial # tomorrow if you can give me any insight to anything.

Thanks a lot gentlemen!

Scott

[scottyb]

Scott, that all sounds good. Okay except cooking the battery acid on the stove and adding salt.That sounds dangerous and a bit like voodoo. But a little maintenance does do wonders sometimes.. Try changing your old decroded cables with some 4g to let the amps go thru without all that resistance inside of the wires! You will need them sooner or later. The buzzer should work fine after the connections dry out. Don't over wash - some of the speed control components do not like to get wet. Keep us posted