2011 Carryall Help Needed

[PMD3454]

Took cover off motor. Loaded with carbon. I've only looked at one motor before and there was essentially no carbon, and that motor was much older than this. Does all this carbon indicate anything?

But more important than the carbon is that the leads to the two interior brushes were broken. One of the strands was completely broken and the other 90% broken. No evidence of burning, just broken wires. See closeup photo. The other interior brush was the same as this, one lead broken, the other almost completely broken. Leads on the two brushes toward the end of the motor look fine.

[Fairtax4me]

If you re-try the power test on the motor, give one of the wheels a quick spin and see if that makes it start working. Could be corrosion or just sticky brushes.
I would plan on pulling the motor to at least clean things up in there and have a look at the brushes and commutator.

Sometimes, a motor will go bad and take out the controller with it, so hopefully it's just something like worn out brushes and not other internal damage. Before you try to put it back together use a continuity test to make sure none of the commutator bars are shorted to the armature core.

Edit: Just saw your pics of the motor. Those brushes are beyond toast.
I'd pull the end cap off and see if there is damage to the commutator, but more than likely new brushes will get it going again.

[PMD3454]

Commutator appears to be in rough shape, especially the inside track where the brushes wore down so far the wire end crimps were wearing on the commutator. That track is now concave and worn unevenly around perimeter. One stretch of the perimeter, about an 1/8 of it in particular is worn more deeply. See photo.

So my question is if I spring for brushes, will this commutator work so I can verify that this is the problem? And then I'll start searching for replacement motor.

[Fairtax4me]

Man that one is rough! I've seen some that were kinda scored up, but that thing is wasted. I'm not even sure that one could be cut to re-surface it. Normal wear limit on these is only like .040 to .050". The problem when the comm bars get too thin is they can warp and peel up. Then it turns into a hook spinning around in there and just wrecks everything.

If you have another cart with an IQ motor I would try swapping that in just to test the controller and electrics. Otherwise, it's a leap of faith at this point. We know it needs a motor, and hopefully that's all.

[PMD3454]

ok, thanks. Probably best to skip the brushes and start looking for a used motor.

[PMD3454]

Update - no luck on finding a used motor at a reasonable cost. David at Revolution shared the scary $1300+ cost for new from Club Car. No options for aftermarket motors for this. Took armature to a local motor/starter place, Pro Rebuilders. They couldn't find a replacement motor or armature either. They've done rebuilds on old tractor starters and generators for me before so I elected to send the armature to their source for hand rebuild. Should have it back in a week or so. Will provide an update when installed.

[PMD3454]

Update - took 4+ weeks to get the motor armature rebuilt, but it's now installed and everything seems to be working. Still on blocks so I haven't driven it yet. Thanks again to Fairtax4me for leading me through the troubleshooting and ultimately determining the motor was bad.

Got back into the voltage reducer. The only thing on it is headlights and they aren't working. I'm guessing the dump box motor was on it at one time based on the wiring I'm seeing, but that is now wired direct to the switch from batt 2 for 12V, with the ground connected to the isolated bus.

Tested lamps and switch with 12 volts directly from the pack and they are ok. I have 48v on white from the key switch going into the voltage reducer, 48v from pack positive going into reducer, and the yellow wire in reducer is connected to the isolated ground bus. Coming out of the voltage reducer is a red and a black, Red feeds the light switch. Black is connected to the bus. I have 0 volts from red to black. 0 volts from red to bus with black connected to bus. Fuses and fuse holders in 48V in and red out have all been checked and are ok.

Is there any other testing I can do on this thing to be absolutely sure it's bad? It ridiculously expensive and want to be sure before I replace it.

[Fairtax4me]

I mean... Ideally you want the lights run off of a reducer, but how often do you really need to use the headlights? The dump bed lift motor has a pretty significant draw but it only gets used for 5 seconds, and here again how often will it get used? If its multiple times every day, then maybe get a new reducer for it. If its only going to be used once every few weeks or months...
I wouldn't go out of my way to get a factory replacement for that. Get one of the $50 ones and wire it in if you really want/need the reducer.

[PMD3454]

Good advice. I'm not sure that either will see much use, so I'll wire the lights across a couple of the batteries also.