I dragged home a free Westinghouse

[minitrucker]

So I was given a free Westinghouse, dont know the model, and the batteries are trash. I have a few 12 volt deep cycle batteries from a low rider that I decided to try. I hooked up 3 of them and the cart works perfectly and has great torque. I already knew the run time was going to be pretty short but didnt think it would be this short. Since the 12 volts are hooked up in series, can I hook up a 4th in paralell to improve my run times just a bit?

Also, what risks are there to just running 4 12 volts on my 36 volt cart? Specifically, what is the most likely thing to burn up??

Thanks guys and Ill post pics of my cart later on tonight.

 

[BadToTheBone]

We want pics.

 

[StreetGlide]

Welcome. Yes we all would like pics.

If you paralled all three of the initial string, the additional battery would probably explode. If you installed it paralleling only one initial battery the amp hr capacity of the two would be twice as much, but you would not get to use the additional capacity since the other 2 will discharge in half the time (even if you figured-out how to charge it separately). If you installed 3 additional batteries paralleling the inital 3, your capacity would double. Just adding one in series would be adding 33% of initial total which I would think would burn-up something, but what, I could only guess.