Helping Neighbor With 96 Medalist

[Scndsin]

Hi guys, my name is David.

I have a new, semi-disabled, semi-retired neighbor who uses his cart to get around his & his daughters property.

The cart is a 96 Medalist as decoded here on this informative site using the serial/mfg #s, with I guess the Robyn (?) engine. The problem is a no spark condition which I've read a few threads on, but still have a few questions I hope you can help me with.

First I'm using info from manual 605586 that I got from here: http://www.buggiesgonewild.com/ezgo-...iagram-id.html

If you can recommend a better one, please do.

Here are the preliminary readings that I've gotten so far:

Across the primary terminals of the coil, 3.2 ohms on a 200 scale.

Across the pins inside the towers of the coil, open.

Across the pins of the harness connector coming from the pulse coil, 18.7 ohms on a 200 scale.

Output from the pulse coil while cranking, 0 volts AC.

I can understand one area not giving a reading , but 2 at once makes me suspicious that I'm reading or testing wrong. The wiring is a little rough & dirty with some splices, but they appear to be solid. The grounds appear OK as well.

If anyone can give me a recommended course of action or diagnostics, I'd appreciate it. Thanks, D.

[Dave Box]

Here is a long shot but an easy test. I only mention this as it happened to me and to my eternal shame it took 3 days to find it. In my case the drive clutch was loose on the crankshaft so it gave the appearance of cranking the engine when in fact all that was happening was that the clutch was spinning. This gave me the same readings as you are seeing.

Dave

[pnshvl68]

Try this. Unplug the pulser connector behind the air cleaner box, spray some WD-40 in the connector then plug back in. have had alot of issuses with that in our 120 cart foleet at the golf course...

[jeffrun]

your electrcal readings on the ignition coil seem to be ok. The pulsar reading is not good. Place your meter on the 20V-AC scale, have someone crank the motor, you should read 1-5V AC. If you replace pulsar,set air gap at .030. Also check that you have a solid 12V + on the plus side of ignition coil when cranking. Other common things are spark plug wires, plugs. If all the above check out, that would leave the ignitor as the problem.

[Scndsin]

Thanks for the quick response guys. I didn't have access to the cart today so I couldn't check some of the suggestions, but I hope to try Tuesday.

[Scndsin]

Originally Posted by Dave Box

...the drive clutch was loose on the crankshaft so it gave the appearance of cranking the engine...

Yep, engine is turning over. I've had the plugs out & piston is moving air.

[Scndsin]

Originally Posted by pnshvl68

Try this. Unplug the pulser connector behind the air cleaner box, spray some WD-40 in the connector then plug back in...

Ok, just to be sure, on this one it appears that the pulser harness comes out of the right side engine cover just under the air cleaner box. 2 wire, red & black. Cleaned with contact cleaner & no change.

[Scndsin]

Originally Posted by jeffrun

your electrcal readings on the ignition coil seem to be ok. The pulsar reading is not good. Place your meter on the 20V-AC scale, have someone crank the motor, you should read 1-5V AC.

Checked again, still 0 output. Unfortunately my meter only has 600 & 200 vlt AC scales.

Originally Posted by jeffrun

...If you replace pulsar,set air gap at .030. Also check that you have a solid 12V + on the plus side of ignition coil when cranking...

OK, here's a weird (to me) thing... Checking voltage to coil while cranking, either hooked up or just the harness ends, I get 3.5-5.5 vlts DC & when I let off the pedal, there is a spike to 12-14 vlts. Now that reminds me of something I read somewhere here. When I initially was checking for spark I used a little inductive spark checker & thought I saw it give off a single flash when I would let off the pedal to stop cranking... And I think I read something about just that somewhere & can't find it again.

Originally Posted by jeffrun

Other common things are spark plug wires, plugs. If all the above check out, that would leave the ignitor as the problem.

On the plug wires, does the coil have pins that pierce the core of the plug wire as opposed to metal contacts crimped to the end of the wire?

[jeffrun]

voltage reading on coil to low, you want get hardly any spark from coil. Have some one crank the motor and measure voltage at the battery terminals, let us know what you read. The other thing to try is jumper a #12 ga copper wire from the plus+ on battery directly to the + on the solonoid, motor should crank and almost full voltage on coil, if motor trys to start or fires, then you have a problem with the micro switches or wiring between the ignition switch and the solonoid. If you dont get any fire when you jumper the solonoid,Might be a time to think about hei conversion, which replaces ignitior. The pulsar would need to be replaced at same time, you were not getting a reading there.

[Scndsin]

Hi guys. Just an update... (The other forums I belong to, its always a pain when you help somebody & never find out if it was successful or not)

Tried the jumper idea & got no joy. So I sent the owner to a local cart supply shop to P/U a pulser coil. He brought back one with a round magnet rather than a bar style as original as well as mounting holes not correct. Apparently the guy had trouble turning to right page which answers why he was no longer working there when my guy went back. At any rate they had to order the correct style which naturally took forever due to holidays.

Finally got the right one installed & spun it over with my digital meter hooked up & still no joy as far as output. 19 ohms resistance, though. Out of desperation I borrowed a really cheap, tiny analog meter. Plugged it in, spun it over & the needle moved just a bit to indicate there was some juice flowing, maybe a a couple of volts.

Put everything back together & gave it a try with my spark checker on the HV leads too the plugs & WOOHOO! the indicator flashed! Little bit more tinkering & dang if it didn't move under its own power.

Thanks guys for your help. I'm glad I didn't have to throw a bunch more parts at this thing. My neighbor was kind of distressed that the first coil was $46 & the correct one was $92.

Thanks again.