1987 EZGO Marathon starts moving with F/R switch

[cwensil]

Hello everyone our family just happened upon a 1987 marathon and I was told there was no key but it ran. I was excited that with a 1.25 fuse the charger worked and did charge the batteries. The issue is that when I move the F/R switch to either position the cart starts moving in that direction without hitting the pedal. I checked the connections. Nothing looks overly rigged up and and a brief comparison to wiring diagrams I didn't see anything glaringly wrong. Has this happened to anyone else? Thanks in advance for any insight.

[surfsano]

Mine was doing the same because the wiper board connections were bent around the edges a little and they were arching. I filed around the connections and it stopped. Hope this helps.

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[nickdalzell1]

Just fixed an old resistor Marathon last week. same symptom. ended up being a very well-baked solenoid which was welded. Ours would take off without gas pedal, just by putting it in Forward or Reverse--would be at speed 1. The wiper board stops at speed 1 and the micro-switch is what kills the power when you let off the gas pedal. So if solenoid was welded closed you'd have speed 1 all the time unless in neutral.

I wish they still made resistor cars personally. VERY simple to work on, and parts are cheap. With customers getting cheaper with each generation lately, they really need to make a comeback. No one today likes being out $650 for an RXV controller because they forgot to put the car in TOW before pushing it home.

There have been times I've converted a controller Marathon to resistor because they refused to pay the price for a rebuilt controller. Not hard to do, really. Even managed to get an old Ruff N Tuff car going since the Chinese controller was non-obtainable but ran great with a Harley style Resistor/Solenoid control.