1986 Ezgo marathon resistor coil overheating

[EZGO3W]

I have had an issue with the resistor board on my 1986 Ezgo Marathon cart. The original board was degraded as well as the housing. I made a new housing and had some phenolic board from a high voltage circuit board that I used to rebuild it. I put new bolts and washers to secure the resistors to the board. Either the phenolic failed or the bolts got too hot and frayed/burnt the board. I have ordered a new resistor board and to make sure this doesn’t happen again I am looking for the best combination of bolts/washers/spacers to keep this from happening again. Brass? Stainless? Ceramic washers? Nuts? Any help is greatly appreciated.

[pggroves]

Those resistor systems generated heat. And lots of it...
Best piece of advice I could give you is to adjust your driving style to keep the coils out of the circuit as much as possible. The only two throttle positions where the resistor coils are out of the circuit are at dead stop and full throttle. Anything in between bleeds excess voltage through the coils which in turn generates the heat. Sometimes to excess if driven long enough.
If you must constantly drive at low speeds (i.e. partial throttle) then an upgrade to an electronic speed controlled system would be advised and would be much gentler on your battery pack as well.

Good luck.