Bongo Fury

An update.

Well........ gave the van a good clean inside and out. Looking good. Lots of driving without a problem. By now we're really enjoying the van and the kids especially love it.

However, the mechanic that changed the cambelt before I drove it home from leeds told me that it obviously hadn't been serviced in along time so I decided to book it into a bongo specialist down my way.

So she was booked in for a full service, a couple of water pipes were replaced that looked alittle worn and new coolant and a system bleed. Very Happy - driving like a dream. THEN!!!!!

A few days later my wife went to local supermarket, parked up and just happened to look back at the van, only to see about a litre of water under the passenger side front wheel! She phoned me and asked me what to do. I got her to check the temp guage which said 11 o'clock. We decided that she should limp it the four miles or so back to the house keeping an eye on the temp guage. After about mile the temp guage went up to 2 or 3 o'clock - other than that driving fine. My wife pulled over and turned off the engine. No steam, no strange smoke or noises, nothing. Anyway, when I got to her the water in the header tank was hot as hell and started bubbling over when i took the cap off so we didn't drive the van anymore and got it on a flat loader and taken back to the bongo specialist (thank goodness for breakdown recovery!)

The Mechanic says that the radiator has split and the temp guage is faulty and both need replacing. I won't know if there's any damage to the head until they're fixed! My instinct is that it'll be ok because there was no catasrophic noise or steam etc but I've also read on here that if the guage goes anywhere over 11 o'clock, you're done for.

I'm trying not to let this worry me too much but the van stands me in at £2100 so far and if the head needs replacing that could be goodness only knows how much!! Oh well, my fingers and everything else are crossed!

Perhaps I should have bought that VW T4 after all!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

hmmn, did you see the crack in the rad?, seems a bit suss to me that this happens straight after a service, if it started to bubble over after you took the cap off, this generally means that theres air in the system causing back pressure , if the rad had cracked then their wont be a presure?.

You may be better putting a post in the techie section as you will get a much better response with answers from there

Thanks - I'm not particularly technical i must admit!

No. I didn't see any crack but I'm leaving it to the specialist - he's knows what he's doing and is a very honest guy (highly recommended bongo specialist and a member of this forum). Just heard back from him - doesn't sound like good news as it now won't bleed properly. He's going to pressurise tomorrow and let me know the news but I'm expecting it to be bad.

To say i'm gutted is an understatement and worse of all, I feel that I've let my family down by buying a dog, because we all rely on daily transport so much, even though i did loads of research and got it straight into a garage to get it up to scratch.

Now i have to make the decision to get it fixed, goodness knows how much more that'll cost, or break it for parts and go down another route.

Thought we had a cracked head (had been driven a few times with no water in rad), But touch wood still going strong.
Harder than you think these Bongos.

boddhi wrote:Thanks - I'm not particularly technical i must admit!

No. I didn't see any crack but I'm leaving it to the specialist - he's knows what he's doing and is a very honest guy (highly recommended bongo specialist and a member of this forum). Just heard back from him - doesn't sound like good news as it now won't bleed properly. He's going to pressurise tomorrow and let me know the news but I'm expecting it to be bad.

To say i'm gutted is an understatement and worse of all, I feel that I've let my family down by buying a dog, because we all rely on daily transport so much, even though i did loads of research and got it straight into a garage to get it up to scratch.

Now i have to make the decision to get it fixed, goodness knows how much more that'll cost, or break it for parts and go down another route.

Yeah i know what you mean Marc, shame theres people out there who sell on vehicals when they know theres problems with them, scrub my last message, have found out about your bongo and I very much doubt its the garages fault or yours for that matter for buying it.
Good luck with it anyhow

sent you a pm.

I'm a little more hopeful today - might be better news than i thought! Pressure test was OK - May be a faulty water pump - a lot less costly than a new head!

Just to add - I doubt the seller knew anything about it either as I drove it for quite some miles without a problem and they seemed like really nice people.

I think it's just one of those things - a spot of bad luck.

thats great news Marc, a much cheaper option than new head.

Water pump failure can cause the bongo to overheat which could crack the head, so at least you did have spot of good luck then , you should be back bongoing anytime soon.