Bongo Fury

After a 5 mile run is your bottom hose from the radiator warm or cold?

I did a test today, and I ask all of you to do similar and post your results here on this forum.

My test:- Drove the Mrs 2.5 miles to her Belly Dance class, tested the top and bottom hoses her - top hot, bottom cold. Drove a further 1.5 miles to ASDA, restested hoses - top hot, bottom cold. Left Bongo for 20 mins and then drove another 1.5 miles to see my mate Mick, top hot, bottom cold. left van 15mins, drove another 2 miles to B and Q, top hot, bottom cold, left van 5 mins drove 1.5 miles to home, top hot, bottom cold. All the above driving was in town so no fast roads. The bottom hose never even got warm as if the water had passed through the rad and had been cooled down, it was cold.

The idea being to find out if this is normal for the Bongo and, hopefully, track down what is really causing the frequently reported overheating problems.


{Edited by Trevd01, (admin) with a copy of vanmanerik's post in another thread, to hopefully clarify exactly what the poll is about}

I've just done a 45 mile trip and bottom hose is COLD Temp gauge rock solid at 11 o'clock and no overheating. Even the heater had to be turned down because of the warmth in car, thus restricting the flow through the heater matrix.

i've been out all day and bottom hose is cold,temp gauge steady at 11oclock with plenty of heat from heaters.

________________

simon

I'm bongoing mad R U?

Just been out to the Bongo for a feel of My bottom hose Its cold after a 25 minutes trip home from work stuck in traffic.
Temperature steady as usual at 11 o clock heater working fine.
Dabs

I have used my administrator privileges to edit this thread, having clarified the question, I have removed posts from me, Mike, John (Franco) and Vanmanerik, which were not adding anything to the debate.

The thread can now proceed as intended

I hope none of you mind.

(Administrator)

No probs Trevor - keeps it nice and simple.

The flow doesn't get restricted to the heater matrices franco - it's a constant flow regulated by an air control flap to give hot/cold.
I'll try mine tomorrow.......

Thanks for your assistance in editing this lead Trev, it makes sense now.

I hope that if enough of us can answer this poll it will help us understand the cooling system of the Bongo a little better.

Thanks Dandy, I had just assumed that it operated like some systems I'd had on some older cars (can't remember which). So now we know that turning the heater up will have only a limited effect to help engine cooling.

Hi I checked continuously for about a month after changing the coolant and it never was warm even after 85-90MPH motorway drives and sitting in traffic for a while my temp gauge stays rock solid at 11 o,clock so I am happy it is meant to be like this.

After a drive round town this morning the bottom hose was quite cool.

Does all suggest that in a lot of conditions there is very little or no flow through the radiator.

just had a good run round
bottom hose still cool
temp gauge fine so not worrying

Either the cooling system is :-
a) quite happy using the bypass circuit, heater curcuits and the turbo charger cooling curcuit to keep the engine at its correct working temperature.

b) Or the cooling system is working as we expect and the coolant is flowing through the radiator and back to the engine - if this is the case then I would have expected the bottom pipe to have felt slightly warm at least.

So I assume the scenario is that the cooling system is quite happy as in a) and if the engine overheats then the thermostat would open and bring the radiator into action to cool everything down to working temperature.

Any other theories on our mysterious Bongo cooling system?

Surely the radiator plays a major part in cooling the engine.

It suggests in the manual that when bleeding the system it should be run at 2500 revs until the lower hose is warm. I think this is probably to allow full circulation and the purging of any trapped air in the system.

For the first time since my overheating problem started, I managed to get the lower pipe to warm up while bleeding the system last night. Thereafter i drove for over 20 miles without a problem. When I started my run the lower hose was hot, but when I got home it was only warm. It has always been cool in the past.

I suspect that when things are working fine the lower hose will be cool. I also suspect however that when bleeding the system with the car stationary the pipe should become warm or hot.