As the title states, I just picked up 11 GEM cars - all with a manufacture date of 2002, with the exception of one 2001 car. They’re a mix of long wheel base with beds, short wheel base with beds, and short with baskets - all 2 seaters. The plan is to restore as many as I can to working condition, keep one for myself, and sell the rest. All of them are in varying degrees of completeness, with only one in running condition (minus batteries). It’s looking like I can get 6 working cars with relatively minimal effort, but the remaining ones will be missing a lot of parts. This is mostly just a “hey I’ve just joined the community, there’s a lot of great info here!” post, but I do have three questions.
I only have 2 DC-DC converters, and only one is confirmed working. All 11 have not had the recall taken care of according to Polaris’s VIN lookup (confirmed by a call to their help line). Does anyone know of a way that I could get these parts for free as a part of the recall, but install them myself during the restoration/rebuilding process? I was assured by the Polaris rep that it won’t matter that many of the converter boards are missing, since the recall is still open.
I called around to the dealers local to me, it was late in the day though and I only got through to one. This dealer did not seem to want anything to do with the GEMs, and essentially told me that no they wouldn’t just give me the converters due to liability (understandable) and they really didn’t want to deal with performing the recall on 11 GEMs. I plan on making more calls in the morning, but just hoping someone on these forums has an alternate route.
I have no batteries for any of these. I hope to eventually go lithium in the car I’m keeping, but even just buying flooded lead acid cells for all of these carts is going to cost a pretty penny - and I don’t have any cores since the cars came with no batteries. What routes do people here recommend I take? For the time being, I just want to buy one set of batteries to move from car to car, to test controllers, motors, etc. and inventory my “good” parts.
I only have one charger and the guy who sold me the cars said it just stopped working. It’s a Zivan NG1. Any recommendations for replacements/most cost effective chargers to put into all the cars missing chargers?
DC DC Converter . It will be a pain if you have to bring the 11 gems to the dealer, prob they Will hate you but it’s a recall they should do it.
Charger: most of the ppl here go with DeltaQ. They can store different profiles depending the type of batteries you want to use. (Including Lithium)
Batteries: Lithium is definitely the way to go in case you want to keep it, but it requires some work.
Ask @Inwo for his green cells, they are better and lighter than Lead acid And price is not bad compared with flooded.
Maybe you can use those in all of your cars.
There are better charger out there in my opinion I kept getting stung by Delta Q the bumblebee as we call it around here because you keep getting stung by them
I would agree with @djgabriel2004 assessment. In LA the Polaris dealer made a house call to do both the DC/DC converter as well as the updated parking brake. I am guessing they will need to have working batteries to do the fix so it can be confirmed.
I have had good results with the Delta QuikQ chargers, especially with lithium conversions.
Welcome to the community and good luck!
PS, thinking you may be a great source of used parts…
After you get tired carrying lead around, get a 72v jump pack.
This one is 32s LTO 76v nominal. Only 35lb and 12ah but lets you test electronics safely and move the cars around.
So that’s what the red powerpole connector is for on the '10 eL I bought from you. I was wondering what kind of Doc Emmett Brown stuff you were doing with it…
Wow! This got a lot more attention than I was expecting. I’ll do my best to respond to everyone.
@djgabriel2004 I definitely intend to take care of the DC-DC converter recall, I’m missing most of them and (according to Polaris) it’s a way to get free new ones. It’s just a pain to transport all 11 since I can only fit 3 in my 26’ box truck at a time.
@ca6772738758 I live in Massachusetts, just outside of Boston, but my shop and the cars are up in Nashua, New Hampshire.
@Reddevil Polaris did mention I might be able to get a house call for the recall. I do need to sort out batteries though and I need to make them a bit more complete (make sure wiring is all there, seats, dash, etc.). I’d definitely consider selling off any extra parts when I’ve got a few working. Sadly, most of my plastics are cracked or broken, but I have some ideas about making my own fiberglass replacements.
@Inwo That is exactly what I was hoping existed somewhere! What does one of those cost? Do you sell parts/kits/completed ones?
It is only for testing. 100 amps will not pull you up hill or accelerate quickly.
What it will do is let you drive for a couple miles, charge quickly with any 72 v charger, tolerate much abuse, and work hot or cold. Such is the magic of lithium titanate.
Interesting. And you’ve made full battery packs out of these LTO cells? I’m assuming you’ve written about this already on the forum, but do you have a ballpark of cost/effort for a full battery pack?
I’ll have to dig through your previous posts a bit and learn some more this evening… Do you have a “crash course in lithium conversion” post somewhere?
You need to change the name of this thread from, “Just Bought 11 Gems & I have some questions”. TO I just bought 11 GEMS NOW I have 99 Problems
LOL: dam son you just bit off a Big Chunk, Head Scratching. I have had like 3 Gems at once and keeping them in all tip top shape to sell or EVEN keep clean & charged is a JOB in it self. And this is coming from a guy that knows his way around a Gem I can’t Imagine having to get all 11 running and sorted out.
Well good News this is a great community welcome. When sourcing parts for your Gem check here first. Lots of great people here. And it’s a nice way of paying forward for customer service you will receive here buy spending your money with members here on the fourm.
So are u doing all the work on these? If so I have a question I have had my cart at 2 different shops none have fixed it. Had a code -6. I have done everything everybody says. Lights come on. Just does nothing else. Any ideas it did happen after I washed it could sometime got wet. This happened about 6 months ago and hasn’t run since. Rggranbury@gmail.com. Thank you
@grantwest yeah, I definitely but off a lot in one go. I wanted one to play around with, but when 11 popped up for $4200 just an hour north of me, I had to check it out. Luckily, I’ve got two other people in this with me to help out (and a really awesome forum here).
The plan is to get one running well and use it to test all of my remaining parts. From there, I can figure out how many will make it back onto the road. I am really happy to have found this community and I’d love to support other members by purchasing parts here.
@Robbiegranbury I will be doing all the work myself on these. At this point though, I’m probably not the best person to answer your question. This is my first time working on a GEM car and while I’m fairly confident I could figure out any issues that arise, I have none of the experience that many of the other members on this forum have.
Based on my understanding of how these cars operate, the advice @Inwo gave you on your thread would be the next step in troubleshooting your issue.
