Club Car DS V-glide Gets Hot

I've a 1990 Club Car DS and the bottom post on v-glide gets hot. Even on jack stands the bottom post with white cable gets really hot
 
Thanks. The connections are all looking good and switch is new. Question...when I ordered the switch it did not come with the stud so I made one. Is that an issue?
 

Rstaley

Cartaholic
HotRod is right. AS an old (and I do mean old) electronics technician, I can verify that where there is HEAT, there is RESISTANCE. The bottom connector, as I recall, is the one that goes from the solenoid to the resistor group, so it is important that is a VERY good connection. Here is the schematic that I use in a book I wrote for the model I think you have.
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That is correct. I confirmed just now that it's wired correctly. I forgot to mention to you that the v-glide melted only on the wiper side. As I mentioned it the homemade stud I made an issue?
 

Rstaley

Cartaholic
The stud is certainly important. It connects three wires: the wire to the resistor group, the wire that goes to the solenoid, and the flexible braided wire that goes to the wiper. It doesn’t get much more important than that. I don’t know how your “homemade” stud looks, but as long as it connects these wires together without any resistance it should do the job. If one of the contacts that the wiper touches gets hot (usually because of a bad connection the back side), it usually melts its way down in the plastic so that it does not make proper contact with the wiper anymore, and then you’ve got a real problem. But the stud I think you are talking about is just a contact point for those three wires and should be ok as long as it keeps them connected together without resistance.
 
Yes that stud connects those 3 together. The only place I see that got hot was the wiper side of the stud. The contacts are all clean etc and the wiper seems to glide perpendicular with the pads. I did put it on jack stands and I that stud got hot. Would low voltage be an issue?
 

Rstaley

Cartaholic
Yes. Everything gets hotter when the cart is trying to operate without a good supply voltage. The cart should always be properly charged before doing any troubleshooting.
 
It was fully charged last Sunday morning when this happened. It was driven about 1/2 hour then it happened. They are new batteries.
 

Rstaley

Cartaholic
I just hate it when everything is perfect but it still doesn't work (just kidding). It looks like you are just going to have to let it get hot again and look a little closer. Maybe someone else has a better idea, but I have never experienced any unusual heat problems at that connection on that model. I've owned several of them through the years. Of course, there will be some warming of all of the wires on the high energy side (motor, F/R switch, v-glide, and the wires between them), but there shouldn't be anything excessive. The only thing that is meant to get HOT are the resistors (that's their job).
 

Rstaley

Cartaholic
If you had a bad battery, there would be lots of other symptoms, like chugging under a load, inability to operate at all, or something. You definitely need to put a meter on the battery pack and make sure that it is somewhat normal (37.9 or so without a load and not dropping more than a volt or so when moving the cart), but if that is ok, and you still have problems with that contact overheating, there has to be something wrong right there. Does the motor spin the wheels when on the jack stands? If, for some reason the motor won’t spin, that would change everything. A stalled DC motor with voltage applied will draw excessive current and cause all kinds of things to overheat. The cart kind of internally hemorrhages trying to get that motor to spin.
 

Jaredsweerin

New Member
Any follow up on this? I just replaced my vDrive housing (not the complete assembly) and the 5th resistor stud on the outside of the vGlide is quite hot. The resistors show about 1 ohm when measured across all 5. The housing was replaced because the 5th speed stud melted through and I really don't want to burn up the new one too. I'll re-torque in the meantime and keep checking it out.
 
What I found out to correct my issue was the incorrect angle adjustment of the slide lever. Only 1/4 of the slider was making contact and that caused the issue. I adjusted it and all is well.
 

Jaredsweerin

New Member
Yes, that wiper is a pain to adjust. Mine was fine for the first few blocks of driving, but now it's getting stuck on one of the pads. My cart is a 6 seater, so it takes all the oomph this 36V system can offer and every little drain on the circuit adds up.
 

Joepiccaso

Cartaholic - V.I.P.
I also, have a 6-seater and live in a hilly neighborhood. I had to convert mine to 48V and get a high torque motor to climb the hills. It actually, would make it to the top of most, but I could walk twice as fast as it would go. If my batteries weren't so new, I'd probably gone to 72V. I just added two more 6V batteries under the front seat, since I had the room. Next is Li ion batteries before these FLA's go bad.
 
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