1991 EZGO Marathon

[yler4cy]

My brother in law has a 1991 EZGO Marathon gas. Last week he was driving it and out of the blue the cart just stopped working. He said the motor doesn't turn over at all and when you hit the pedal all you hear is 1 click. However, when he puts the cart in reverse the backup alarm goes off, but once you push the pedal down the alarm goes silent.

I told him that I had a fuse blow on mine, and it did something similar to what his is doing. He said he checked the fuse behind the forward/reverse handle is perfect.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[my1423]

I would check all the grounds and battery cables and the battery condition.

Sounds like a bad battery cable or just corrosion on the cable end.
Clean the cable ends.

Quick cable end check.
Put a voltmeter on each of the battery posts and check voltage. + - Should be around 12v. if under then charge the battery.
If its good Crank it and check voltage. If it drops way down your battery is toast.
Now leave positive lead on the battery post + and other end on - on the cable end -. Crank it.
Swap positions - on battery post - + on cable end + and crank.
Any big drops will show the bad connection.

[yler4cy]

He is checking into that, but if he can't get it to turn over what good would it be to check that stuff? As mentioned all it does is click once when the pedal is pressed.

[my1423]

Corrosion on cables cause a short. Shorts in electrical can be hidden with no load. Ie same voltage.
Once you add load like cranking it the short will show itself because the voltage will drop to nothing due to high resistance not letting any amperage through. .

Or the battery can be shot.

The test above will only check the battery and cable ends.
If nothing is found we can look farther, but that is the most common issue, and its easily checked.
It does not cost any money to check unless you need to buy a meter witch can be found for 20$

Edit forgot to add after checking cable ends do the same test on the solenoid and then on the ground bolt. This will show if its a bad cable.