Charging problem 1996 Club Car 48V DS non-regen cart

[bbetterton]

Hello I am new to this forum.
I have a 1996 Club Car 48V DS non-regen cart.
We have had this cart for 3 years with no problems other than the left side of the cart sags lower than the right. We purchased new batteries 2 years ago and they were installed at the dealer. The other day I watered the batteries (distilled water, after fully charging them) and here is where the problems begin. To start with I fully charged the batteries and it took longer than usual (24 hours). I then watered them and I was going to charge them for another hour or so to mix the electrolyte and the charger would not come back on. I came on this forum and learned that there is an on-board charging computer and that they give lots of problems. I also downloaded a wiring diagram. Here's where the fun begins. I discovered that someone has performed a hack job on my cart. The fuse on the cart side of the charging receptacle has been bypassed. The black wire on the receptacle is supposed to connect to the fuse and then the black wire running to the OBC connects to the fuse. The fuse was connected to nothing. The black wire coming out of the receptacle has been spliced directly to a another peice of wire which has been run directly to the - post of the first battery in the series. The black wire that runs to the OBC is connected to nothing. The red wire from the receptacle is still running to the + post of the last battery in the series. The only wire from the receptacle to the OBC is the grey wire with a fuse in it. Is it possible that this is only providing a reference voltage to the charger to tell it to turn on. Also the charger itself is fine we plugged it into another Club car and it worked fine. Is it possible that somebody has done this to basicly bypas the onboard computer. It never gave this problem before. By the way sorry for the long post, but I was trying to be as descriptive as possible about my situation.