1982 G1 Not Charging

[stevebussard]

Hi guys! I'm struggling with my 1982 G1 (gas model) not charging. I've looked through all the threads, and am just not seeing anyone who seems to have the same issue I'm having. I picked it up in early November, with a known charging system issue. The previous owner said it did have an aftermarket starter-generator on it, that was charging fine until he suspected the voltage regulator failed on it. The OEM style VR was replaced with a cheapo VR from Amazon or Ebay or something... it was not adjustable like the OEM style. When the VR was replaced, the cart still wouldn't charge, and they had began checking for wire harness continuity by cutting and splicing the wire harness in several locations.

I have gone through the entire wire harness, and removed all the crimped on wire connectors, and soldered, and shrink wrapped every location that was cut. Extra ground wires were added to random areas of the cart by the previous owner, that I removed, to put everything back to "stock" form. I did end up adding a direct ground from the battery (-) to the engine block, back of the SG housing, and VR, just to make sure there was a good ground.

At this point, I have replaced the cheapo VR, with an OEM Yamaha VR. That didn't fix the problem, so I also replaced the SG, which also has not fixed the problem. The cart does start and run, both in forward and reverse. I get a common 12.6V reading at the battery, and solenoids, when the cart is not running, but when it's running, it drops down to 10V at the battery terminals. When I perform the "full field" test on the VR, I get 8.6V. This is the same reading that I got with the SG that was on the cart when I bought it. So I think it's fairly safe to assume that both SG's I have are good, or maybe they're both bad. It just seems strange that the voltage is the same with either one.

I haven't replaced the battery, but it does accept a charge from a battery charger, and will hold a charge, and start the cart. The one thing that makes me consider changing the battery, is it looses power fairly rapidly. It will run the cart for quite a while, but after just a couple minutes, it struggles to turn the engine over, if I let it shut off. When the battery isn't under a load, the voltage comes back to 12.3-12.5V, but again, it drops to around 10V when starting, as well as running. Could a weak battery be causing all my issues? Thanks in advance for any help!

[Lochlin]

Your battery is junk for sure. With no charging whatsoever a good battery will run a cart for a couple of days without petering out. Your load test is telling as well. A good battery won't drop much during starting.

To be honest, it appears as if you have replaced the entire charging circuit except for the battery. By default, it almost certainly has to be your issue.

My hunch is that your battery is degraded to a point where it is "sucking up" whatever voltage is being put out by your charging circuit to a point where the circuit can't keep up.

[stevebussard]

Originally Posted by Lochlin

Your battery is junk for sure. With no charging whatsoever a good battery will run a cart for a couple of days without petering out. Your load test is telling as well. A good battery won't drop much during starting.

To be honest, it appears as if you have replaced the entire charging circuit except for the battery. By default, it almost certainly has to be your issue.

My hunch is that your battery is degraded to a point where it is "sucking up" whatever voltage is being put out by your charging circuit to a point where the circuit can't keep up.

Thanks for the input. I will pick up a new battery tonight. At this point, what's another $100? LOL!

[stevebussard]

So I replaced the battery, which did test bad at the store. I installed it, and the cart still didn't seem to be charging, although the voltage drop was nowhere near as significant as before. It only dropped to about 12V under running load. I performed another full field test, only for about 3 seconds. The voltage reading got up to about 11.8V, before the back side of the SG exploded the guts out the rubber window cap!

So what now? LOL. Clearly something is different than before, but it still doesn't seem to be charging properly. Luckily I still have the SG that came on the cart, but I don't know for sure that it works. I know it does start the cart in forward and reverse. I've read that the resistance between the red and green wire should be about 5 Ohms. The new one that just blew up, was about 5.2 Ohms. The one that came with the cart checks at about 14 Ohms. Not sure if that means anything or not...