Advice with Marketeer renovation for hill use

[Timpyoung]

Hi all,

I'm new to the forum. I just bought a 60s or 70s Marketeer on craigslist hoping to be able to use it eventually to get up and down a hill on my property. I live in Redlands, CA, which is where these things were originally built, which I thought was pretty cool. We just did some grading on our property and are going to be planting fruit trees below. I'm hoping to use it to get down the hill, pick some fruit, and get back up. I bought it for a couple hundred bucks from a guy who got it from an older gentleman. He hadn't been using it and didn't know much about it as far as the age of the batteries, etc. It runs but I'm pretty sure the batteries are toast. I charged it for the first time last night, for 12 hours with the Lester charger that came with it. After charging, it really struggled to get up my concrete driveway (about 50 feet long, incline at 11 degrees or 19% grade as measured by an iphone app that I have). It did pretty well at first on flat ground but the charge only lasted about 20 minutes or so. I'm looking for advice as far as getting it to a point where it will do what I'm looking for in the most economical way possible. It's a 36v golf cart with 6 US Battery 6V batteries. When I bought it 2 of the batteries were nearly dry, so I added distilled water. Each of the batteries tested at 6.6 or 6.7v after charged. I'm including some pictures of the cart and of the slope I'm trying to get up. It was just graded by a dozer and is pretty well compacted. The main incline is about 200-250 feet long and is mostly at about 10 degrees (17% grade) according to my phone, and the last bit ramps up to about 17 degrees (30% grade) before getting to flat ground. I'm planning to mostly use the cart to get up this hill. I won't use it for golf at all and might use it a bit around the neighborhood, but by far the hill will be the major use. Here are some questions I've been considering:

1. Is this a feasible thing to ask this cart to do? Or should I just forget about this before putting money into it?
2. What can I do to make the biggest difference in its climbing power?
3. Are Trojan 105 batteries worth the extra price versus the batteries available at Costco?
4. Is it possible to modify the cart to trade speed for some climbing power? Thicker cables? Change in gearing?
5. Any suggestions on some knobby tires for helping get up the hill?

Thanks for any help you can provide. I really didn't want to bother with gas for this, but I'm wondering if this is too much to ask an old electric cart to do. I don't have much money in it now, so I have some to spend, but I didn't want to start putting money into it and regret it later.

Thanks,
Tim

Sorry, just realized there is a 7 day rule for posting links. I just joined yesterday. If you cut and paste these into your address bar, you should be able to see the pictures. I'll make them links next week.

farm9.staticflickr.com/8061/8197914860_1c3d9b3b40_z.jpg
farm9.staticflickr.com/8481/8196823911_1bcafd371b_z.jpg
farm9.staticflickr.com/8061/8198101824_9b09828a61_z.jpg
farm9.staticflickr.com/8346/8198113594_eb58d53870_z.jpg

[Timpyoung]

Today I tried hooking up 3 good 12 volt car batteries instead of the 6 old 6 volt cart batteries. It definitely had more power and got around really well on flat ground, but still struggled on the 11 degree incline of my driveway. I'm wondering about changing out the 36 volt motor for a 48 volt motor. Also wondering about down gearing it or any other way to get more power.