Marathon: Shorted a wire while hooking up volmeter and now the batteries are sparking

[OSU_Cart]

As the title says, i was hooking up a voltmeter on an EZ-GO Marathon and i shorted a wire (hot wire that was going TO the voltmeter). I quickly pulled it away from the body.

Then I unhooked both 16 gauge wires from the positive and negative of the batteries. I forgot to initially re-tighten the wingnuts. I checked to see if the cart will still function. One of the back batteries sparked.

Once I realized, I tightened the wingnuts.... figured that was the problem. It wasn't. One the back terminal that arced finally burned the wire off. I also noticed one of the wires on the passenger side getting hot but not as bad.

Cart was running fine until I shorted a 16 ga wire to the body.

My daughter is going to KILL me. It was her 13th bday gift.

Please help if you can.

[scottyb]

Post pics of the battery post & wire problem. Maybe we can see whats wrong.

[OSU_Cart]

Where it broke loose was the rear battery on driver-side, negative terminal. Sorry that the pics aren't clear.

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[OSU_Cart]

Is it possible that this connection was loose the whole time (wingnuts) and the short maybe made it worse? And that the looser connection made it arc so bad that it burned off the connector?

How important is it to have a very tight connection on the terminals?

[teecro]

As you have now seen it is very important that all connections be clean, bright and shiney and that all connections are tight enough to not come loose during use. As these issues will cause heat to build up to the point that something melts....

[cgtech]

Take all wingnuts off, throw them in the trash, then replace with an actual hex nut so it can be properly tightened.

[OSU_Cart]

As it turns out it was a loose connection. I thought I really messed something up. I'm used to working on cars and this wound never happen.

But 36V at 75A is something I've never dealt with.

Agreed... wingnuts are going to be gone! Right now I've got them cranked down with a wrench.... and they were ALL loose.

Thanks for everyone's feedback.

[OSU_Cart]

Just a quick thought....
36V X 75A = 2700W DC power
120V X 15A = 1800W (House power... although it's AC)

That's a lot of power under our seats!!!!