Bongo Fury

hi guys


I am a newbie looking into this issue of some kind of protection for overheating,ok geting the correct heat of engine issue is something which is important,and i will let you guys battle that one out on the best location of thermister on the other post.
I am planning on some back up kind of temp gauge,as i looks like the bongo one in the dash is a little dicky.

surely the coolant sensers high and low can be a good thing?
I ve seen the haydon way of doing things and seems to be a nice bit of kit,is this what most bongoers use these days??

would a inline fuel temp gauge "help at all" if coming off the return of injection pmp?
I do this when i use vegi oil with a twin tank kit in my other van.the tempreture of the coolant does reflect in the fuel temp coming out from ip.
Ie. if iam geting a little hot if say stuck in traffic the fuel temp also rises.


jez
http://i723.photobucket.com/albums/ww23 ... h09001.jpg
ps off topic but have a look at my conversion

Fitted in mine is a Mason alarm - http://www.townace.plus.com/ie/ietemga2.htm removes the damping on the temp gauge & provides a settable alarm.
Haydn's low & hi coolant alarm as well as an overflow alarm & seperate prototype temp alarm I was testing for Haydn as the combined coolant/temp alarm was being developed.
I've also got a digital temp display.
The mason & coolant alarms cover most eventualities, the TM2 combination or temp alarm combination give a bit more choice.

I, along with a fair few others, have the Hadyn & the Mason.

More than adequate for covering most eventualities without excessive outlay.

Seems I can take my pick of overheating posts here to add my question to so I've picked this at random but am I being very daft if I ask why a visual check of the coolant level is so inadequate?

I have read so many posts about Haydn's coolant loss alarms that my brain is fried. I'm not mechanically inept, but on the other hand I don't do anything to anything without a Haynes Manual (and there isn't one for the Bongo) and even then I keep it simple.

Nothing wrong with a visual check, & is still recommended even with the alarms fitted to keep an eye on coolant condition, but if one of the 17 ageing hoses gives up 5 minutes after that visual check, or water pump gives up etc etc, the alloy head on a cast block is not forgiving of overheating incidents & is liable to result in a rather large bill & a load of aggro.
The fitted temp gauge is useless, it has been dumbed down so as not to scare people by moving, by the time it moves - if you notice it, the damage has often been done. This may not be instantly obvious, it may seem you've got away with it (which you may have) but personally I think an overheating incident isgoing to cause problems in the future.
Fitting a Coolant alarm along with a TM2 or Mason alarm, means most of these possible failures will result in an instant warning, which means you can stop instantly thus hopefully preventing any majorly negative scenarios.

Agree with the others. Cheapest effective option is low coolant alarm (essential insurance I think) plus Mason alarm (or TM2 for a bit more dosh).

PS - so far, I've only got round to fitting the LCA, which says something!

17 hoses blimey!! http://www.coolantalarm.co.uk/index.php ... oductId=39

i was thinking of this inc a high alarm am i on the right tracks??jez

That's the one.

cool,

i see that on the coolant alarms you need to drill into expantion tank,is there any chance they could crack when drilling,iam not sure how tough that plastic is after 12 years??

anyone had any probs in fitting alarms to the tank in that way i should know about?

jez

chipvan wrote:cool,

i see that on the coolant alarms you need to drill into expantion tank,is there any chance they could crack when drilling,iam not sure how tough that plastic is after 12 years??

anyone had any probs in fitting alarms to the tank in that way i should know about?

jez

Sounded scary, but was v. simple and worry free in practice. Haydn includes a drill kit in the kit so you have a nice sharp one to cut cleanly through without causing undue local stress on the tank.

spose less risk than running out of coolant!

well over 600 have been fitted and untill recently we used 2 x sensors per tank...thats more than 1200 drillings.....NOT a single failure.

It works....

Thanks for the replys, i was not trying to stir anything up on here,i just thought i would ask.

If there was a slight risk of damadge during drilling i would get in a spare one thats all.It was not a dig or anything

ok i will order one up,digital display,high and low water alarm for me.

I will have a look at it when i get it and if iam worried iam sure i can find a helper in my aera.


jez

Alison01326 wrote:Seems I can take my pick of overheating posts here to add my question to so I've picked this at random but am I being very daft if I ask why a visual check of the coolant level is so inadequate?

I have read so many posts about Haydn's coolant loss alarms that my brain is fried. I'm not mechanically inept, but on the other hand I don't do anything to anything without a Haynes Manual (and there isn't one for the Bongo) and even then I keep it simple.

I don't think you are being at all daft.
The alarms are obviousley good warning systems, wouldn't want to knock them.
I was recently speaking with a "Bongo " mechanic who is very highly regarded by his forum, his view was that most of the cooked heads horror stories that he had been involved with were because people had carried on driving when the guage had gone into the red, rather than stopping immediatley. He also said that he had viewed quite a few Bongos where the owners had stopped imediatley the guage went into the red, these Bongos had all been OK, head wise.

Reputation is a strange thing, "Bongos overheat and have useless temperature guages"

A similar saying back in the 70s and 80s was that "Morris Marinas can't go round bends, and are unreliable"
The Marina I drove, which was an un modified 1.8 saloon, frequently saw off many Ford Capris driven by my colleagues down the twisty roads, and I covered 90,000 miles in it without a single breakdown

Maybe the Bongo isn't so prone to melting it's head as we think. All things are relative.

Bongos overheat for the same reasons that lots of other vehicles overheat. A search on the net will give plenty of general examples. Trouble is, on this forum we only hear about the bongo.