94 EZgo Marathon speed question

[plantguy90]

8mph on moderately steep grade sounds acceptable. 4mph on 4% incline is frustrating.

[kernal]

I would give the batteries a hard look. Also check wiring and connections are clean and tight. Dragging brakes?

A fully charged 36 volt pack should read 38.2 on a digital volt meter(DVM) after sitting several hours off the charger. An individual battery should read 6.3v.
After that a load test. You can do this yourself with DVM.

My opinion is: if the previous owner cannot verify the age and condition of the batteries then they are suspect.

[plantguy90]

48v upgrade then is not an option for this work cart. Not looking for high performance, just trying to get rid of any underperformance.

OK, back to the batteries, been told from the local cart shops its all or none with swapping those, otherwise I'm wasting money.

How do you check all 6 batteries for 38.2 with a VM?

[JMGreco]

Each individual battery should read 6.3v, the entire pack should read 38.1. Put the DVM leads on the battery terminals at the end of the pack, where the cables are not connected to other batteries. It will be two seperate batteries, one positive the other negative.

[kernal]

Set dial to 200 on Vm side. Put red probe on +post of battery that has the wire going from it to the charger receptacle and the black probe on the - post of the battery that has the other wire from the charger receptacle. These should be the inside batteries closest to the front. The F/R switch is between them. Don't know how to tell you better than that. You could also do each battery separately with dial on 20 on Vm side and add all six up to 2 decimal places ( hundredths). Don't need to disconnect any wires to do this.

Note. Assumes your cart is still in original factory configuration.

[plantguy90]

Past the batteries, is there a better controller available for the 94 marathon's that might also help the speed question?

[kernal]

Originally Posted by plantguy90

Past the batteries, is there a better controller available for the 94 marathon's that might also help the speed question?

I know you don't want to hear this but in a word--no. All Marathons were originally series wound motors. If yours is a controller cart you could install a new, higher amp controller which would allow you to take advantage of speed enhancing parts, but in series carts speed controllers by themselves do not affect speed. As has been stated before, Marathons are dependable, solid carts but they are not plug and play, and they are 20 years old give or take. There is no cheap, easy way to bring them into the 21st century. Sorry

[plantguy90]

Swapped out all the batteries to a set that is only 6 months old and been maintained well. Speed only incrementally better, still only about 5mph on a 4% grade.

I cant imagine that rich golfers put up with that even 20 years ago. I'm old enough to remember, its not like it was the stone age back in 1994...

[pggroves]

Originally Posted by Coltf1991

Do you cannot get to 42v. All of your batteries in the pack have to match. If you want to go the 8x6v battery route Scottyb sells a kit for putting the batteries in the bagwell. Unless you can put them on the passenger and driver side under the seat. I am not real famiar with how marathons under hood is setup.

Good Luck!

Colton

Last time I checked, 7 x 6 equaled 42.

FWIW, some of the Western's came stock from the factory at 42v. So, 42v can and has been done.