Bongo Fury

mikeonb4c wrote:Interesting to consider what the safety implications might be. For example, is that crossmember critical to avoiding a crash rather than just a breakdown. Anyone with professional knowledge able to comment?

Released from my nursing duties for a respite break at the weekend so I thought it would be a good time to make a start on the "new" Bongo and try to track down the cracking ball joint like noise coming from the O/S/F of said bongo.

As we are closed the last Saturday in each month I had the workshop to myself.
We have an ATL at work fitted with shaker plates and so I set the Bongo up for a full interior strip out an underbody inspection and a good shake to trace the noise.

I was surprised to see the O/S chassis leg moving up and down relative to the inner flitch panel, or vice versa ,when being shaken this movement was the source of the cracking sound.

What had happened was at some time in its past the starter battery had leaked and dropped bat acid into the seam between the flitch and the chassis rail flange causing it to corrode away along its length. This in turn allowed the leg to flex opening the laid over seam in the foot well/floor wheel arch causing this to corrode away. Now open to water ingress to the floor pan you can guess the rest .
Looking at the front cross member it is possible to just make out stress fractures around the mounting flanges to the O/S chassis leg although the cross member is near perfect in every other respect.

Doesn't bear thinking about if the front X member were in the condition of that shown in this post.
All of this was quite well hidden under battery tray,mats and sealers. I dont think it would have been picked up without shaker plates and extensive stripping although clearly it had been there for some time.

Being a tall vehicle with a heavy weight roof on it is liable to get more flexing than say a tintop a it must be of huge importance in resisting torque when conferencing and braking on an AFT.

Interesting post Bongolia - I'd love to see pics of the area in question as i wonder if owners are aware of all the rust susceptible areas in these now old machines. I recently asked my very Bongo savvy mechanic to investigate rust holes at cill front ends (inside front wheel arch) that i thought were just local rust-outs of bung holes. Turned out i had extensive rust out, much of it hidden behind plastic wheel arch liner. They'd never seen this one before, probably because no-one had given them reason to go exploring there before, and because time is marching on. All cut out and beautifully welded now, before damage could get cumulative.

Jesus H Christ Bongolia, I said I'd be interested to find out what the noise was, I had no idea it was going to be something like that! I'd be very interested to see the pictures too.

If some one can tell me how the hell I post them up I will post the whole series?
It may be of interest to others.
All I get is image too large?

Bongolia wrote:

mikeonb4c wrote:Interesting to consider what the safety implications might be. For example, is that crossmember critical to avoiding a crash rather than just a breakdown. Anyone with professional knowledge able to comment?

Released from my nursing duties for a respite break at the weekend so I thought it would be a good time to make a start on the "new" Bongo and try to track down the cracking ball joint like noise coming from the O/S/F of said bongo.

As we are closed the last Saturday in each month I had the workshop to myself.
We have an ATL at work fitted with shaker plates and so I set the Bongo up for a full interior strip out an underbody inspection and a good shake to trace the noise.

I was surprised to see the O/S chassis leg moving up and down relative to the inner flitch panel, or vice versa ,when being shaken this movement was the source of the cracking sound.

What had happened was at some time in its past the starter battery had leaked and dropped bat acid into the seam between the flitch and the chassis rail flange causing it to corrode away along its length. This in turn allowed the leg to flex opening the laid over seam in the foot well/floor wheel arch causing this to corrode away. Now open to water ingress to the floor pan you can guess the rest .
Looking at the front cross member it is possible to just make out stress fractures around the mounting flanges to the O/S chassis leg although the cross member is near perfect in every other respect.

Doesn't bear thinking about if the front X member were in the condition of that shown in this post.
All of this was quite well hidden under battery tray,mats and sealers. I dont think it would have been picked up without shaker plates and extensive stripping although clearly it had been there for some time.

Being a tall vehicle with a heavy weight roof on it is liable to get more flexing than say a tintop a it must be of huge importance in resisting torque when conferencing and braking on an AFT.

Do Bongos conference?

The easiest way is to upload to an account like photobucket (its free to sign up) and then copy the link and paste here.

I tried that , it worked once then never again. I will get one of the lads to set it up for me.

Max pic size is 800x600 pixels.

I find making the longest dimension 640px gives a large enough pic. Photobucket has a resize edit option (not available in mobile app) but I find it easier to resize a batch of photos on my PC before uploading to photobucket. There are free apps for mobs to resize pics (e.g. SimpleResize for iPhone).

Uploading resized pics is also quicker than originals from a camera or recent phone.

i think the pieces your referring to are shown in this link, number 53291 A and Y, this is welded to the top outer edge of the chassis leg just under each battery. from the outside looking from the wheel it is masked by a mudflap held on with 2 scrivits so cannot be seen, and as said under the battery trays from inside.

http://lushprojects.com/bongopartsmk2/c ... mgno=.html.

you can see the start of the rot in pic 8 of the original posted pics.

http://s1174.photobucket.com/user/Bongo ... t=3&page=1
Is that it?

That's worked Bongolia. You've certainly not hung around have you! I hope you can get it sorted fairly easily.

Studying the photo's during my lunch break, you mentioned a link between a noise and the chassis leg (sorry everyone else, less interesting to you guys!). Which noise do you think this was causing, as we thought the chuffing was the N/S (and you haven't heard that yet have you?). Was it the knock described a while back when changing from forwards to reverse? I hadn't heard that since the garage couldn't locate it! Talking of which I'm shocked and disappointed that they didn't flag anything untoward. I'd never had need to look under the starter battery. It failed and the garage is only over the road, so they picked it up while I was at work and replaced. It hadn't leaked, I'd just left it too long over winter without running the engine. So the leaking and hole must have been apparent when they changed it. Nothing was said. Then the same when they were looking for the knock and chuffing they must have been under it on their shaker and never mentioned anything untoward!

Safe to say I'll be taking my cars elsewhere from now on. I'm not laying blame at their door as such but it makes you wonder if they can miss all that..............

Bongolia wrote:http://s1174.photobucket.com/user/Bongo ... t=3&page=1
Is that it?

ouch, makes a front crossmember look like a walk in the park,

Roosmith. It was noticeable on full lock reverse braking and full lock forward more of a clacking than knock. If coasting in neutral engine off left full lock brake hard it was quite a pronounced clack and grate.
I have had the chuffing also and I think that is transmission related not too concerned about that at the moment.
I can understand them missing it if they where looking for a knock but how they missed it on an MOT

Well indeed on the MoT front. As you can tell by all the invoices, it is all the same garage.