Bongo Fury

At last! Great news. Have finished major refurbishent on the Bongo's engine bay after an overheat the weekend before last. The fault lay with a stuck thermostat!

The head actually looks fine with no sign of a problem. Certainly didn't end up with emulsified oil which is so often the outcome of a failed cyl hd gasket. However rather than chance a possible (or rather probable) serious cylinder head failure at a later date the decision was made to replace the existing cylinder head and a few more bits and titivate the engine compartment whilst good access was available.

Not only was the cylinder head replaced but also the water pump, thermostat (of course), all coolant pipes were replaced with silicon ones (that was fun, NOT!), belts for the air con and water pump, air filter?, cam belt, pulley and tensioner. The engine was gunked, alloy bits given a bit of a clean with a wire brush and hidden areas given a top up with waxoyl.

The engine started beautifully tonight (after a good bleed) and a run around the block was made to get the engine temp up. Returned home and will now check the coolant level in the morning having bled (hopefully) all the air out.

I actually removed the front seats and carpets and access was excellent.

We have now owned our Bongo for nearly '5' trouble free years. We can't see us getting rid of her for a very long time yet and hopefully the above works will now give us another lengthy period of virtually trouble free motoring.

Thank you to those of you who have offered help, advice and guidance.

Oh, and a Mason alarm goes on tomorrow to sort the temp gauge out.

Nice one Tim , glad to hear it's sorted & running well, wise investment in the Mason, you'll realise just how useless the original temp gauge is. You'll have time to do my GB stickers now See you at Looe if not before.

Thats great news Tim, i'm glad that you have got it all sorted. Looking forward to meeting up with ya sooooon

Thanks Kirsty and Dave.

Great to get her on the road again!!

Must get those stickers done

Great news mate
catch up soon
Paul & Tracey

And don't worry if the mason alarm reads 'high' when you're booting it uphill, apparently that's normal (for the mason alarm), just as long as it comes back down again.

Thanks Allan and Lorna.

That new temperature gauge is going to be a bit disconcerting for a while i think! I'm so used to the nice one which doesn't move much.

Paul & Tracy Catch up soon.

Good result Tim.

Thanks Bob. Hope you and Sue are keeping well.

Incidentally we are up your way on Sunday until Friday. Mill Farm Park, Fiddington near Bridgwater. Its a non-Bongo thing although there are 3 Bongos in the convoy!

Bongo is running like a dream but keep checking the header tank level as the last little bits of air disappear.

Since its all gone quiet on here for a while i thought i might give you an update on our Bongo following a major overheat.

You may have seen my bit concerning a huge loss of oil from my engine after the clinder head was replaced and i went into some detail about why it was occuring and what the remedy was. The oil loss issue was reported to Ian and he is now putting a note with his cylinder heads and gasket sets. Not Ian's problem but an issue that could result from after market spec items.

Anyway sorted the oil leak last weekend and now have a perfect oil-free-engine.

I can't tell you how relieved the family is that the Bongo is back to normal and running like a dream. Especially now that we don't have pools of oil on the drive and a horrendous smell of oily fumes after a few miles of driving.

As stated before we have owned the Bongo for nearly five years now and have absolutely no intention of getting rid of her.

We still get as excited about getting in the thing and driving off somewhere as we did all that time ago.

samuel wrote:As stated before we have owned the Bongo for nearly five years now and have absolutely no intention of getting rid of her.

We still get as excited about getting in the thing and driving off somewhere as we did all that time ago.

Hooray! See ya 'round - December 13th if not before

We'll be there Alison. Its good to regain faith in the old workhorse again.