Bongo Fury

Hi all, as you prob know I am a complete imbecile when it comes to motors etc, so been doing some research on here as I have looked into leisure batterys and cant afford one! It seems like you can attach a normal battery up as a leisure batt as a temp solution
so my question is how?? what exactly would I need to do??
Have read and bookmarked pippins post on the wiring but dont know what to do under the bonnet.

If I were in your position, I would manage without until I could afford a battery and a Willinton Kit (split charging relay and all the bits and bobs to get your leisure battery powering the bits you want it to power).

In the meantime, I'd just take it very easy with whatever power you draw from your starter battery, and get a cheap voltmeter (we bought a reasonable multimeter from B&Q a couple of months ago for under a tenner) to enable you to keep your eye on it.

Not sure if this is any help to your original issue, but here's the link to the Leisure Batteries bit in the FAQ section of the forum http://www.igmaynard.co.uk/bongo/forum/ ... =43&t=7499

To start with, have you got a battery tray on the passenger side? Then you'll need a fused heavy gauge positive supply cable to charge off the starter battery & an isolator as well as an earth lead as a basic set up, then you can charge on the run & then disconnect the isolator when camping so the leisure battery drains but the starter doesn't. You could just run it as a battery that you charge when at home via a battery charger, then connect it up when camping, but then if it gets low you're stuffed unless you've got hook up to charge it, in which case you wouldn't need the LB
Are the instructions you're planning to use, the ones that require cables to be cut & connected, or just removing relevant fuses & then plugging in the LB supply into the bottom fuse connection to supply the relevant circuits?

the instructions are
Look at the fuse board by the drivers right knee.
Remove the fixing screws and wiggle it forwards so that the rear is visible.

Counting from top left to right the numbering goes 1 to 8.

Fuses 1 to 5 are fed by a thick white/red from fuse BTN under the bonnet, which is always live.
(the fuse, silly, not the bonnet!)

Fuses 6,7,8 are fed only when the ignition is on via the thick red/black wire.
6&7 are curtains L&R, 8 is cigarlighter & mirrors.

1] If you do not have a secondary battery:

You can either select just the cigarlighter/mirrors or probably easier and handier select those and the curtains so that you can operate them without the ignition on.

Cut the thick red/black wire going in a couple of inches from the rear of the fuseholder for 6,7,8. Insulate the end that comes out of the loom.
Use a short length of similarly sized wire to extend the end going into 6,7,8 and tap it into the thick white/red that feeds fuses 1-5.

If you want to select just fuse 8 for the cigarlighter/mirrors then you would have to identify the blue wire coming out of fuse 8, cut that and insulate the end coming out of the fuse 8. The blue wire going into the loom would then need an in-line 15A fuse fitting and then tapping onto the aforementioned thick white/red that feeds fuses 1-5.

2] If you have a secondary battery you may wish to feed things from that rather than from the engine battery.

The instructions above are modified only by disregarding tapping anything into the aforementioned thick white/red that feeds fuses 1-5.
Instead you would need to connect it/them into an appropriately fused wire connected to the secondary battery.

While you are at it you could also feed all the internal vehicle lighting from that source as well.
To do so, cut the blue/red wire coming out of fuse 1 and insulate the end coming out of the fuse. Fit an appropriate 10A inline fuseholder to the end disappearing into the loom and connect it to the secondary battery.

Simpler to do it the way I said above, take the relevant fuse out & make up/obtain a connector, to supply the relevant circuit by plugging in to the bottom of that fuse connection with the fuse removed, with the supply coming from the LB with an appropriately fused cable. There're a few threads on it - here's one of the first - http://www.igmaynard.co.uk/bongo/forum/ ... hp?t=11189