Gas golf cart engine turns or runs, but the cart will not go

Gas carts are fewer than electric ones around Conroe and Lake Conroe, and a lot of the ones still running are older carts that came with a house or a family member. When one of them suddenly will not go, the engine is often fine. A gas cart has a drivetrain an electric cart does not, and most “it runs but won’t move” calls end up there.

First, is it running or just cranking?

Most gas E-Z-GO and Club Car carts are pedal-start. Press the pedal and the starter-generator spins the engine; once it fires, the engine runs until you lift your foot.

• Steady cranking, engine never catches. This is a no-start, not a drive problem. Old fuel, a fouled plug, a clogged fuel filter or a carburetor gummed up from sitting are the usual suspects. Our cart that sat and will not start page walks through that.
• Engine catches and revs, cart crawls or does not move. Keep reading. The power is being made and lost on the way to the wheels.
• Engine runs, cart creeps on its own at idle. Skip to the creeping section below.

Where the power gets lost

The drive belt. Power goes from a drive clutch on the engine’s crankshaft, through a belt, to a driven clutch on the axle. The clutches change ratio as the engine speeds up, the same idea as a snowmobile. A belt that has worn narrow rides too low in the clutches and slips; a glazed or cracked one slips too. The tell is an engine that revs normally while the cart crawls, worst going uphill, sometimes with a burnt-rubber smell.

The drive clutch. It is supposed to stay open at idle and close on the belt as the engine speeds up. A dirty, worn or seized drive clutch either never grabs (engine revs, nothing happens) or never lets go (see creeping, below).

The driven clutch. A weak spring or worn ramp on the driven clutch lets the belt slip under load even with a good belt. It usually shows as a cart that is fine on the flat and gives up on a grade.

The forward and reverse shifter. On a gas cart the selector shifts gears in the axle. If the shift cable has stretched or come loose, the lever can read forward while the axle sits in neutral. The engine runs, the belt turns, and the cart stays put.

The brakes. A parking brake that did not release, or rear brakes rusted to the drums after the cart sat, can hold a gas cart in place. If the cart is hard to push in neutral, start there; our brakes page covers what we find.

When the cart creeps at idle

A cart that rolls forward while the engine idles has a clutch that grabs too early. Three causes cover most of it: the idle speed is set too high, the drive clutch is sticking closed, or the belt is too tight for the clutch spacing. Carts that have had an aftermarket engine swapped in are the common case, because those engines often idle continuously rather than shutting off when the pedal comes up, and the clutch and idle have to be matched to that. Until it is fixed, keep the cart in neutral with the brake set when you are not driving it.

What a visit looks like

We start with the cheap checks: whether the engine is running or only cranking, shifter engagement at the axle, the brakes, and the belt. Then the clutches. A belt check is part of every gas tune-up, which runs $150 to $300 on our pricing page, and the $50 to $100 service call is usually applied to the repair. Clutch work is quoted in the driveway once we know which clutch it is, before any work starts.

What to tell us

Gas or electric, the brand and roughly the year, and which of the three it is doing: cranking but not starting, running but not pulling, or creeping at idle. If the engine has been replaced or the cart has been lifted, say so; both change which belt and clutch parts it takes. We cover The Woodlands, Montgomery, Willis and the rest of the Lake Conroe area from the mobile repair page.