If Kirsty is looking in on this one, she has posted recently (and on many occasions in the past) a pic of her Bongo gauge, and it describes the o'clock thing very clearly so perhaps she will be kind enough to put a link to it.
Your comment 'My point about the stat is, I realise it helps the engine get up to temp, but as it appears from other posts, if its just a little bit faulty then its a block in the system so why not try running without' - yes, no doubt whatsoever that it will keep the temperature down - absolutely NONE - but by doing this, you are kidding yourself that the problem has gone away....and it aint - it's just sitting there waiting for another fault to occur and then it will jump up and bite you (and it has potentially very expensive jaws)
Wouldn't wish that on anyone (except Gordon Brown of course) 
Mike
Sorry about earlier 'smart'
remarks. With regard to the fan over-ride switch, apart from it not being featured in the original design so deemed unnecessary, I have to admit that I considered it at one stage (after reading one of your posts actually) and thinking what a good idea. The only reason for not doing it was that I didn't have a problem with mine so couldn't see any reason to do it.BTW, re: the fume/heat reasons you gave - I remember a post some time ago that got over this by adjusting the engine cover fastenings to make a tighter seal. Got rid of some engine noise too.
But it was all well thought through. Although I always start with a presumption the engineers/designers knew what they were doing, it is always worth challenging nonetheless. For example, if they had got it right they might have foreseen that a low coolant alarm would have been a sensible feature (I was interested to hear that some new cars now have them as standard apparently). Similarly, they might have fitted a proper engine temp gauge (if they reckoned the average driver would know how to interpret the readings of course - never a given 
) if they had considered a 15+ year old example that may not have had its recommended services done (Adrian at Bury says he's seen a lot of imported Bongos that had no antifreeze in the system - I personally suspect this is at least as relevant as using the 'using the wrong antifreeze' theory in explaining the tales of Bongos with gunge in the rads and corrosion on the metal pipes etc.). So as the Bongo has always been a bit of a 'lets try this' project for me, I was happy to fit a scavenger fan over-ride. I suspect the designers were thinking more about engine component longevity than occupant comfort when they designed the standard sensor.
