1995 medalist electric issue

[BrandonN280]

Hey everyone. New to the site. Seems very informative. I'm having a issue with my 95 ezgo medalist 36v cart. Last weekend my daughter was driving and it just stopped. The solenoid was clicking but no movement. Upon further inspection the solenoid had some melted plastic on the big terminal positive side. So we changed it out. After changing it the new one wouldn't click. So we traced the wires and found that we had a bad red wire that went from the micro switch to the solenoid small terminal. We decided to try a jumper wire from the micro switch to the solenoid and it blew the diode up. We threw on a new diode and it blew up again. No exposed wires. Now here's the funny thing. With the diode off and the jumper wire from the micro switch to the small positive terminal on the solenoid the solenoid clicks and the cart moves. I'm leaning towards a issue inside the controller but I'm just not sure since it moves without the diode. What are your thoughts? Tomorrow I'm replacing the micro switch and the red wire since it's obviously bad. Oh and I had that red wire disconnected when we used a jumper wire. The other thing is that before the diode exploded when we touched the jumper wire to the solenoid it sparked a lot. But with the diode off it doesn't throw sparks it just clicks like normal. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks