Upgrading A Golf Cart

[Mennoniteman]

Most bumpers that are available are bed mounted, so even if you get a small tap on the back, the bed will probably be sacrificed, since it's really not made heavy enough to mount a bumper to it.
I found a nice heavy frame mounted steel bumper made by Strongmade, and it just arrived. This bumper has one really neat feature, it is removable, which I like. You can dump the bed or open the tailgate with the bumper on, but you can't do both without taking the bumper off. That's no problem, since I rarely dump things out of the bed, and the bumper easily removes by pulling two pins.
However, there are several other things that I don't like as much, and so I'm already modifying it. But it's winter and I have a heated shop to work in evenings.

 

[Mennoniteman]

Call me strange, but I think I'm going to remove the logo. It's way too big and obvious for where it's located at. The name of the manufacturer of this rig is not Strong Made and I'm also not into doing free advertising for a name I never even heard of.

 

[Mennoniteman]

The mounting brackets seem to be too long for this bumper, the bumper ends up being mounted behind the bed instead of underneath it like I envision that it should be. The bumper mounts way lower than the bottom of the bed, with a gap in between, and that's why it looks tacky protruding out the back. So the first thing I did was cut 1 5/8" off the brackets and redrilled the holes for the retaining pins, and repainted them.

 

[Mennoniteman]

The two 2"x2" square tube mounting brackets go into two frame mounted receivers exactly like a receiver hitch on a pickup truck used to pull a trailer. So I installed the bumper which was actually very easy, then I quickly realized that this bumper was going to rattle over every bump for the next 10 thousand miles (if the rig holds together that long). So I had to remove the bumper again and drill and tap a half inch set screw into each receiver mount. No more rattling. I sure hope someone from this bumper factory reads this. They can have my design work for free.
But now it's bedtime and my bumper still isn't mounted. Which is great, that's cabin fever work for another evening.

 

[Drycreek]

Jack, here’s where you start to putting a bumper on your ride !

 

[Mennoniteman]

Jack, here’s where you start to putting a bumper on your ride !View attachment 29328

All in good time! I'm currently sitting at JFK airport waiting on my 16+2 hr ride to Thailand via Hong Kong for 10 days of vs work, but the last several evenings have been productive in the shop.
I want to attach 2 recovery points on this bumper, but I don't want them attached directly to the end of the frame or too much pulling might bend the frame, and I don't want to attach to the bumper only, or even lighter pulling might kink the bumper.
So I applied a few farmer engineering calculations and I came up with a design that I estimate will handle 1000 lbs without bending, but according to my calculations, at over 1500 lbs it will kink/ tear off the bumper, rather than seriously bending the frame.
I actually got an Amish welding shop to weld this up, my welding doesn't look this fancy. I got him to weld the attachment bracket, that will be inside the bumper to pair up with the shackle on the outside, against the side of the bumper mount, then lay a 45 degree bendable support strap as the intentional failure point behind it.
I hope no engineering major reads this, as they are going to point out that this solution only looks good on paper (but you have to understand that as a hobby I'm intentionally overthinking this for the fun of it because of cabin fever) and that my extra work will probably do more harm than good.

 

[Mennoniteman]

This Amish guy might not have electricity but he sure knows how to weld! It looks like it's one continuous pc of steel.

 

[Mennoniteman]

This bumper bracket will bolt up to the inside of the bumper. Need a few holes drilled yet. I actually have the bracket setting on there in reverse of how it will be.

 

[Mennoniteman]

All in good time! I'm currently sitting at JFK airport waiting on my 16 hr ride to Thailand for 10 days of vs work, but the last several evenings have been productive in the shop.
I want to attach 2 recovery points on this bumper, but I don't want them attached directly to the end of the frame or too much pulling might bend the frame, and I don't want to attach to the bumper only, or even lighter pulling might kink the bumper.
So I applied a few farmer engineering calculations and I came up with a design that I estimate will handle 1000 lbs without bending, but according to my calculations, at over 1500 lbs it will kink/ tear off the bumper, rather than seriously bending the frame.
I actually got an Amish welding shop to weld this up, my welding doesn't look this fancy. I got him to weld the attachment bracket, that will be inside the bumper to pair up with the shackle on the outside, against the side of the bumper mount, then lay a 45 degree bendable support strap as the intentional failure point behind it.
I hope no engineering major reads this, as they are going to point out that this solution only looks good on paper (but you have to understand that as a hobby I'm intentionally overthinking this for the fun of it because of cabin fever) and that my extra work will probably do more harm than good.

View attachment 29333View attachment 29334

If this was a barn I'd have all of the structural answers, but I'm not a mechanical engineering expert; I'm wondering if my 45° strap brace on this bracket is still too strong to avoid any potential frame damage that I'm trying to prevent? (pushing or pulling) My 4 bolt shackle attachment is rated for something like 5400 lbs, so that definitely won't be a point of failure, should I be drilling a hole in the middle of that strap to work as a partial relief cut? Or maybe a series of holes?

 

[Drycreek]

MM, that was actually a picture of Jack’s Honda, as he was talking about having no bumper. I made a bumper of my Ranger out of square tubing that just slides into my hitch. When my son bought my Ranger I kept the bumper for my CanAm. It ain’t fancy, but it works. I usually just have a hitch ball on mine though.

 

[deer patch]

I'm a former owner of the original Polaris Ranger EV. I bought it used and converted it to LiFePO4 batteries, as the original lead acids had about died. It had some pros and cons. I liked it a lot but upgraded to a Ranger 1000 Crew. One day I'd like to own another electric unit for getting around during hunting season. I'm glad to see more competition coming to this space and hope some of the other ATV/UTV OEMs release models.

PROs
VERY quiet
No exhaust smells
Snuck up on many animals with it
Less maintenance (no engine maintenance)

CONs
Midsized/570 unit
sat two people
Recharge time. Takes hours to recharge vs 2 minutes to gas up
Water crossing isn't a good idea. (puddles/creek)
Lead acid batteries lead to corrosion of frame.
Keeping batteries topped off in barn without power over winter was a challenge.
Reduced range in cold/hunting seasons
Tougher on tires, especially on pavement

If you had electric at your barn, would you have kept it? I’ve heard several people say that the controllers go out often?

 

[RGrizzzz]

If you had electric at your barn, would you have kept it? I’ve heard several people say that the controllers go out often?

If money wasn't an option, I would have kept it. My brother and I split the costs, and we wanted something bigger we could put all the kids in. So we sold it and went to the crew Ranger 1000. The range wasn't amazing with 4 batteries. It wasn't a drive all day type setup. I could have invested in more batteries, but I'm not sure that would have made it a useable work vehicle for folks who demand all day driving range. I did get range anxiety at times.

Regarding the controllers, I think you're referring to the charge controller. Depending on the model year, there were two versions. The older ones were more notoriously bad. When I upgraded to lithium, I didn't need the charge controller, so it came out and I sold it off. (It was a model that wasn't compatible with Li-ion)

The thing I'll say about those Rangers were, the support from Polaris dealers was fairly mixed. Lot of stories from people who had issues the dealer couldn't figure out. I found a Facebook forum where there was a guy who knew a lot about them, who helped me and others through the upgrade.

 

[Mennoniteman]

I finally got around to mounting my new Strongmade bumper on my Honda 1000-6. This bumper is really the best thing since sliced watermelon, made out of fairly heavy steel, yet it removes in less than a minute.
To summarize, I shortened the mounting brackets by 1 5/8", added 2 set screws to eliminate rattle, added 2 shackles for recovery points, and changed the logo. Ok, I guess it's time for a new project.

 

[Drycreek]

MM, you do good work ! I can weld and fabricate a little, but when I have a sure enough project, I take it to a friend of mine who is a welder by trade. Problem is, he’s as old as I am and won’t take on big projects anymore. He will do more for his friends though, and I have a small project that needs his attention before one of us kicks the bucket.

 

[Mennoniteman]

MM, you do good work ! I can weld and fabricate a little, but when I have a sure enough project, I take it to a friend of mine who is a welder by trade. Problem is, he’s as old as I am and won’t take on big projects anymore. He will do more for his friends though, and I have a small project that needs his attention before one of us kicks the bucket.

A welder by trade, he sounds a lot like my Amish neighbor. I sure love doing the odd sure enough project. Years ago my wife asked my 8 year old son, hey what's dad doing? He replied, "Oh, he's piddling around in the shop" That's me, whenever I'm not working for a living I do a lot of piddlin' around with projects and also piddlin' around with food plots.

 

[Drycreek]

Piddlin’ is good, it keeps you moving ! I piddled a little this morning. I set an old bow blind yesterday that I moved from my lease and this morning I took my backhoe and grubbed out all the little saplings in the trail that leads to it. I could have bush hogged them but then I would have had a hundred little pungi sticks to trip and fall on in the dark. This is where I’m gonna ambush hogs with my handguns and hunt deer with my crossbow.

 

[Mennoniteman]

Piddlin’ is good, it keeps you moving ! I piddled a little this morning. I set an old bow blind yesterday that I moved from my lease and this morning I took my backhoe and grubbed out all the little saplings in the trail that leads to it. I could have bush hogged them but then I would have had a hundred little pungi sticks to trip and fall on in the dark. This is where I’m gonna ambush hogs with my handguns and hunt deer with my crossbow. View attachment 29404

Besides the fact that your career was operating yellow metal and you needed your fix every now and then .
I could build you a barn, but that backhoe would make a quick fool out of me, I'm more of a skidloader kind of guy.
I trust you figured in for the prevailing wind on this new setup? How are you going to get these deer and hogs to travel on this trail?

 

[Drycreek]

You are looking at the back of the blind in this picture. There’s a food plot in front of it and I can only hunt it on a wind with a westerly component. SW, W, or NW. Anything with an easterly component and I will have to hunt somewhere else.

 

[Mennoniteman]

Talking about upgrades, I found these Kemimoto Seat covers on amazon, and I'm impressed, fit is great, and the cloth is a woven canvas kind of like a Carhart jacket with a plastic backing. Not something that's going to tear easily.

 

[yoderjac]

Nice Ride!