Bongo Fury

Crud was an understatement when I stripped mine, Mike. There was so much crud & rusty water in there that I asked Harry for his motor.

Fate conspired to not be able to go over to collect it, so, in desperation it went in a bucket of diesel.

Lots of cleaning and lub'ing and it should (hopefully) be good for a few more years.

SD

Also, Kirsty, (just read your post), the motor body sits very close to the hole, so although the hole being bigger helps, there's not much clearance above it (from memory )

Make the hole big enough to allow for that, ie about 1/2". I've done 4 of these now As I said, Mazda saw fit to increase the hole size too

Help! Just started this before I checked the factsheet. How many hours work am I letting myself in for I wonder (remember I'm slow!) as I need to use the car for work. The factsheet doesn't talk about drilling out holes and also I think I probably only need to oil my motor but how much dismantling is required for that?

mikeonb4c wrote:Help! Just started this before I checked the factsheet. How many hours work am I letting myself in for I wonder (remember I'm slow!) as I need to use the car for work. The factsheet doesn't talk about drilling out holes and also I think I probably only need to oil my motor but how much dismantling is required for that?

You'll be alright if you've got a pit helmet - sorry Mike, no idea but it doesn't look too difficult.

Mike, You can prob do it in half a day, first time out.

there's nothing stopping you running the van with the heater motor out, I did for a couple of weeks.

just make sure that anything loose is tied out of the way

SD

stilldesperate wrote:Mike, You can prob do it in half a day, first time out.

there's nothing stopping you running the van with the heater motor out, I did for a couple of weeks.

just make sure that anything loose is tied out of the way

SD

Thanks SD - thats what I'm thinking. Having half dismantled it I'd rather work forwards than beat a retreat

francophile1947 wrote:

mikeonb4c wrote:Help! Just started this before I checked the factsheet. How many hours work am I letting myself in for I wonder (remember I'm slow!) as I need to use the car for work. The factsheet doesn't talk about drilling out holes and also I think I probably only need to oil my motor but how much dismantling is required for that?

You'll be alright if you've got a pit helmet - sorry Mike, no idea but it doesn't look too difficult.

daft bugger

Right, I'm off out into the gathering gloom to see a Bongo about a fan motor

Driving from Anglesey to the lakes next sat, let me know if you need a hand.

mikeonb4c wrote:Help! Just started this before I checked the factsheet. How many hours work am I letting myself in for I wonder (remember I'm slow!) as I need to use the car for work. The factsheet doesn't talk about drilling out holes and also I think I probably only need to oil my motor but how much dismantling is required for that?

You're right, the factsheet doesn't mention drilling out holes, but I did factsheets don't necessarily cover everything as we know.
It's just a matter of enlarging the drain hole in the plastic casing under the motor, simple. Having seen later bongos with this hole enlarged as standard, it's not difficult to work out why
The whole job is only a couple of hours plodding along.

Job done - despite half reassembling it to find - despite looking around too check - that I'd forgotten to put the bottom plastic cover back on the bottom of the fan housing - doh and double doh!!! Cost me 30 mins extra work in the dark with only a small inspection lamp, wind and rain (I had the garage door down over the bonnet mind you so had some cover.

The fan seemed fine, though it seemed to run just a little easier with some copper grease on the bottom bearing and some cyce oil in the top. I put a new sealing strip on where the fan unit mates with the heater radiator housing as the old one had perished (used that draught excluder stuff, of which I had an old roll).

The main thing I was struck by was just how blanked off by crud the fins on the heater rad were. To makke it even more confusing it looked like some of the blanking might have been the decayed remains of some fabric that was meant to be there to protect the v delicate ali. cooling fins. Anyway, it all looked well gone to me so I used a sharp bradawl to pick out what I could and hoovered it all off plus used compressed air blasting too, then sprayed the now relatively unblocked looking fins with some Dettol disinfectant (since I reckon the tendency to pong must come from that area).

When I fired the system up, the airflow coming through was dramatically improved. Not sure how much is fan lubrication and blade cleaning (I did that too) and how much was unblocking the heater rad so air could flow through it better.

My brushes and commutator ring both looked well used but not about to wear out (I hope!) so didn't get involved with those - I'll get a round tuit later

I also finished off the rustproofing of the rear wheel arches by trying to use the spray on waxoyl that cost me £8 in Halfrauds. Useless as it isn't liquid (desptie what it says on the can) and doesn't therefore hit the crevice line where inner and outer wings join, let alone run/wick along it. I resorted to something I've heard old timers swear by, and dripped lots of 5/30 engine oil along the crevice line so it could run down the line and saturate it too I hope. It'll be interesting to see if it works, and if the car smells of engine oil on hot days (hope not )

If you're dropping by this way and fancy a cup of tea SD, you'd be welcome if I'm in. Drop me a PM and I'll give you directions/telno.

Thanks to you and Kirsty for the encouragement. Its turned out to be a good Bongo fettling day even though I didn't start till 2.00pm and wasn't v. enthusiastic.

Finally sorted.
used resistor of E-Bay for a £10 , two hours work and plenty of lube

Thanks SD for your help and to all the other replies.

John