EZGo Marathon throttle issue

[Hugh Brewer]

I have an electric EZGO (Marathon I am told) cat with a steel body and must be one of the first ones with solid state motor controll. Most of the time when you first take off with even just touching the accellerator petal it goes forward so hard it will lift the front tires off pavement (just a little bit) and after you drive it for a minute it will just bareley pull itself along and after a minute more it most of the time is normal. This is the same for reverse.
I have checked the pot that delivers the signal to the solid state control and it ranges from zero with out the petal mashed to 6.57 (ohm meter set at 20K) with a very smooth transitation to the higher number. I have been told everything from F&R switch, solenoid, pot, and even the solid state motor control. Can anyone tell me what this is and or sequence to check and find out.

Thanks

[roady89]

Its either gonna be a bad cable/connection or your controller is going out. I had a controller act similar to this....what was happening was it would work great for just a little but....then the water in the bottom of the controller would slosh up on the controller and start acting ignorant...of coarse I didn't know there was water in the bottom until it finnaly quit and I took it apart.

First thing I would check is all your cables...its a real commin mistake and real easy to miss. Take them off one at a time, clean them and put them right back on.....that way you KNOW they are good.

[pggroves]

6.57k on the pot is a bit high and may eventually give you some trouble. It's easy to adjust but very touchy.

1989 was the first year for the solid state controller.

[roady89]

Originally Posted by pggroves

1989 was the first year for the solid state controller.

Yes, for an ezgo. Melex was the first to introduce a solid state controller in 1986...ezgo was 3 years behind them. Kinda funny considering melex copied ezgo.


The pot is definately going to high. It might send the controller into a fault but I think it will just stop, not what yours is doing. Might try limiting the pot to 5k and see if it still continues.

[lawnmowerman]

Hugh I am having the same exact problem on my EZGO. When i press the gas pedal it wheelies the front 2 tires off the ground and excels about 10ft then just dies to a turtle pace.if u keep moving cart back and forth it will finally kick in and act normal. you can climb hills or drive for several miles without a hitch..If u stop u might have to go thru same process again to get it to go normal again. i have tested everything i can find spec's on and still cant narrow it down. battery votage is 37.4 each has been load tested and hydro'd and results overall are slightly "weak". solenoid B+ gets 37.4 and same at controler side after pedal engage. curtis 1204 controler seems to be working according to curtis spec's the only thing that may be out of spec is my throttle "POT" the ohms test went from 20ohm (no pedal) to 6500 (full pedal) book said 5500 should be max and i couldnt really find what input voltage should be to controler connect #2 and #3 for this for throttle control..as u can see i really dont want to spend 2-400.00 to replace controller if i dont need to any other thing that might cause and how to test it

if you do final a solution to the problem please send me a PM

[rusty]

Welcome to the BGW forum Hugh Brewer..................

[rusty]

Welcome to the BGW forum too lawnmowerman.....................

[lawnmowerman]

well I have some good news and some bad news......good new is I know what your problem is....the bad new is its the control box. As I posted my 94 was doing the same thing. This weekend I systematiclly replace the "pot" speed control first and even tho it gave me better readings (o-5k) it did not change anything....I then replaced controller with a used curtis 1204 and the cart ran fine, no more problems........I hope this helps