The engine is out !

Well it was a busy weekend of barbecuing and drinking. The babies were all home so there were trips to make and ATVs to ride. By Monday afternoon I thought I might just have a little tinker with the golf cart. Well I messed here and I messed there and suddenly realized that if I removed four bolts the engine would be out. As it happened I was wrong as there were another three bolts hidden by the muffler which also had to be removed.

Still throwing caution to the winds (and throwing my back out again) a mighty heave and the engine was out. Looks kind of pathetic doesn't it?

I think that it is 295 cc and chucks out 11 hp. Well if it can get 2 golfers and their bags around a golf course it should get my lardy old ass around the yard.

With the engine out I now have a little extra room to work out the wiring. It is a bit of a mess but nothing I can't handle. Plans for this week are to clean the engine up and then remove all the accessories like the fuel pump and carburetter. Hopefully I can get it stripped down and ready to order the new parts. This model has a separate oil tank and a small pump and regulator to inject the correct volume of oil dependant on engine speed. The link from the throttle to the oil pump was broken so I am guessing that the engine was starved of oil and seized up. This may be why it was abandoned, I will keep you posted.

Onwards and Upwards

As you will have seen from the previous pictures it appears that someone has just pointed a spray gun of white paint at the golf cart and pretty much (badly) covered everything including the rubber trim and fenders. As a result much of the trim looks like this.

I was planning to remove the engine this week but the manual has not yet arrived and to be quite frank, my back is giving me some considerable gyp so a week of light duty is probably going to be best. So I started to remove the trim and using some paint that is allegedly formulated for plastics cleaning it up to look like this.
I have also got the rear panel off to expose the transmission and the drive belts. I would have taken a photo but my Kodak is showing more and more signs of douchbaggeryness.

On the excellent news front it appears that I may have fallen on my feet with regard to tires. It transpires that a friend of a friend knows someone with a bankrupt stock of wheels and tires. Apparently this was discussed during Saturday night when I am never at my most lucid. As a result JC and I went to see said third party on Sunday morning to finalise the deal. As I really didn't have too much of a recollection of the previous conversation I just hung out looking bemused as apparently I bought a set of nearly new wheels and tires for $20. This is how I like to live my life, not really in control but surrounded by people who make good things happen.

It moves !

Today a big shout out to Butch and Bonnie Kennedy. I mentioned my predicament with wheel hubs and wrenches and by lunchtime Bonnie turned up with a 1 inch socket, a 1and 1/8th socket and a 24 inch pipe wrench. For reasons that I don't understand the 1 inch was too small and the 1,1/8th was too big but just like Goldilocks and the porridge, the pipe wrench was just right. (As a slight aside, Butch tells me that most of his tools were inherited from his Daddy. Looking at this pipe wrench, which weights about 20 lbs I cannot help but to wonder if tools were not made just a little bit better in days of yore).

So with a bit of a grunt the nuts were spun off, of course this still left the hubs frozen on. I soon realised that the hill brake had been applied and the two cables then rusted in place. By knocking out the connecting pins and the judicious use of a mallet I was able to free the shoes and off came the hubs. The shoes have plenty of meat on them which will save me $60 and with a clean and a grease it was all back together. I was able to WD40 the cables and got them kind of, sort of, maybe working. Now I am not sure that I trust my life to a set of 24 year old rusty brake cables so in the fullness of time they will be replaced but for now I have brakes that work when you press the pedal and release when you don't. All the tires were flat and without much hope I tried to get some air in them and to my surprise they all held air. It goes without saying that they will be replaced even if these 8 inch tires cost an outageous $50 each (softly sobbing). For the first time in years the cart can be pushed around and that is a good end to the week.

I have ordered the service manual and hopefully it will arrive during the weekend. Then I can start the engine removal and stripdown. Once I am assured that the engine can be saved then I will start spending money. If the the engine has thrown a rod or similar then I have lost nothing but time spend doing what I love, dicking around.

PS My buddy JC liked the idea of the grass print body wrap and suggested that if I do go that way I should replace the floor mat with astroturf. How cool is that? Now with a grass theme for the cart how could I not get this souvenir tag from the DMV?

Virginia wildflowers, yes please.

And so the game starts

The golf cart is off the mountain and home. Courtesy of my buddy JC the move went far more successfully than I thought it would. JC has a trailer with a ramp at the back and a ramp at the front so I hitched the cart to the ATV and dragged it onto the trailer, unhitched the cart and drove the ATV off the front. At the other end we tied the cart to an immovable object and pulled the trailer out from underneath, slick or what?

You can just see the strap going across a flower bed and onto a tow bracket of a small car. This is so when I put the back axle on stands it didn't roll backwards onto me. As my old woodwork teacher, Mr McFarland, used to say, "Safety first lads". Unfortunately Mr McFarland only had nine fingers so the joke was really on him. Still I digress. The first task was to get the back wheels unlocked.

So up on axle stands (and doesn't that look like I know what I am doing?), off with the wheels and come to a grinding halt. The biggest socket I had was 15/16ths and it wasn't big enough. I did, however, have a stupid little adjustable wrench that would fit but it provided all the torque of a gerbil on a treadmill. I tried copious quantities of WD40 and a tickle with a blowtorch but the nuts stuck to the hubs like excrement to a blanket. I guess I need to borrow a big ring spanner (anyone? anyone?). Of course I don't know what size I need, the fact that 15/16ths is too small doesn't mean it is 1 inch, ho hum. Still not to be deterred I pressed on removing the side trim, broken lights, the seats and various other pieces of paraphernalia. All in all I did have quite a jolly evening.
The front cowl is the worst part of the cart. It really does look pretty crappy but I know that I can beat it straight and with some new rubber trim I can make this better than new. "Better than new?" I hear you say. Yes indeed you see I have found a company that produce vinyl body wraps for golf carts. So I just have to fill the dents and sand it down before wrapping it. My initial plan is to wrap it in this,

Yes I know, a golf cart decorated with a grass print. Sometimes I even amaze myself.

The Plan

So you will have seen that the cart looks pretty crappy but having restored a 63 Galaxie I am quietly confident that I can pull this off. The good news is that the body is made up of two shells and both appear to be aluminum (or aluminium as we English say) The rear is in great shape and although the front is somewhat battered I am sure it can be beaten out and filled. Jumping way ahead, the tentative plan is to spray the front shell blue with white stars and the rear shell red and white stripes, thus making it a tribute to my adopted homeland. (Yeah I know, what a suck up).
The first job, after I get it home, will be to unlock the rear brakes so that I can move it around this will be necessary in order to hide it from the fascist bastards at the home owners association. Then I am going to make a huge assumption inasmuch as the engine has locked (or is so worn out as to be inoperable) and pull the engine. Fortunately there are a ton of parts for this little engine and around $350 will get me a complete rebuild kit. So the first plan will be that if this turns to ashes I will have a rebuilt engine and they retail at around $800 so at the very worse I will double my money.
One interesting point is that the cart has a 2 stroke engine so it will be an easy build (flat head, no valves and so on). Being a 2 stroke it runs happily in both directions and this is how you select reverse, stop the engine, throw the switch that reverses the starter motor and restart.
Well the next step will be to get it off the mountain and get it home. With the wheels still locked pulling it onto the trailer will be fun but I have my buddy JC helping so stay tuned and I will let you know how it goes down.