Bongo Fury

Hi Everyone,

I've owned my Bongo since January and have loved almost every minute, up until September of this year, which is when things started to go wrong. CV joint and lower front ball joint replaced, reconditioned gearbox fitted, and now the head gasket. The van is a 4WD and so it's pricey as hell to run, and as I'm a student, I'm hardly flush! It has 160,000 km (100,000 miles) on the clock, almost a full MOT, and is in great nick apart from a bit of rust around the wheel arch and a little bit near the spare wheel housing, which isn't a problem, I've been told.

The reason for my post then is as follows: Is there any tips or advice that people can offer me with regards to ascertaining whether or not I should keep the Bongo i.e. is there anything specific that I can look for, or ask a mechanic friend of mine to look for, before making a decision whether to sell it or not?

Sadly I am not very mechanical and so most of the 'easy' self checks are anything but easy, so laments terms would be great.

Cheers, peeps
Jay

PS: This is not a disguised attempt to luring some offers so please don't make any as I won't respond to them. Selling my Bongo would break my heart and so I won't even consider that option until the new year.

I'm afraid that the head gasket often means a replacement head as well, so you may be looking at around £1500 for a repair .
Rusty rear wheel arches are also expensive to do a proper repair on, as the arches will be rusting from inside and need cutting out and replacing - not just filling and respraying
I'm think you're going to have to do some financial soul searching to see if you can really afford to keep it. Unfortunately, you aren't likely to get much for it as it is

Thanks for your response, Francophile. The head gasket is actually being repaired as we speak meaning the work will have all been completed, aside from the rust, but that in itself sounds like a nightmare and I think you may be right.

Jayster wrote:Thanks for your response, Francophile. The head gasket is actually being repaired as we speak meaning the work will have all been completed, aside from the rust, but that in itself sounds like a nightmare and I think you may be right.

Let's hope they had the head checked before doing the gasket, or they could have to start again Did it actually overheat and boil up?

you have a pm regarding repairs

No, the opposite in fact. The temperature gauge stopped working and no heat was blowing out, and it was really quite sluggish so I took it in to a garage as I sensed it was serious. He said that once he'd got it on the ramps the oil was quite obvious. Apparently they'll have to skim the head, too?

Now then, here's my 50 pence worth.

Flog it as it is & you'll be very lucky to get more than a grand for it.

Getting the head skimmed & new gasket should cost around the £600 mark all in for a decent job with some sort of garuantee/warranty, instantly trebles the value of the van.

Rusty arches, although unsightly, are not an MOT failure as such & can be lived with for a year or two until such time as finances allow to get a proper job done. 2006 Transit LWB ones fit, around £70 each. Once you factor in cutting out the old, fitting the new, paint, labour, vat etc it comes to around £500 at which point you have a viable motor thats worth more than you've spent on it.

If you can rustle up some short term spondoolicks, its worth keeping it.

Thank you, mistermunkey. That is exactly what I was hoping to hear. I appreciate it is just your opinion, but I was kind of thinking along the same lines, especially as Spring is looming fast. And you were bang on with the price of the head gasket, £600, although I managed to save a £100 by purchasing the bits myself, all Genuine Mazda parts, of course, plus I had a new cambelt fitted two months ago as it was due one, so I think I'm going to keep it.

I am slightly worried though that the garage might be lying to me because everywhere I look online it says that symptoms of head gaskets going is overheating, whereas mine was just blowing out cold air instead of hot, acting sluggish and the temp gauge wasn't working. And looking at the videos on youtube regarding bleeding the Bongo suggests that the important pipe is at the front, near the floor, which is near where the (very heavy) snow has been, very much the case with as my Bongo was lowered by some bloke in Japan. Any thoughts?

Again, though. Thank you.

As far as I understand it . . . .

If the heater loses the ability to blast out the hotstuff, generally speaking its because there is air in the system. This is because air tends to settle at the highest point in the system. It normally manifests itself as a airlock in the front heater matrix. When this happens, as there is no hot fluid running through the system, no heat will be transferred through the heat exchanger into the cabin.

The next high point in the system is the top of the head, in this case if no coolant flowing through to take the heat away it causes hot spots that can cause the head to gently warp at first (head gasket gone) then create microscopic cracks (It don't need much) around the pre-combusion chambers. This is the dreaded Cracked Head Syndrome. Normal head gasket failures usually include white smoke from the exhaust & a bubbling in the header tank though.

The temp guage packing up in your case baffles me to an extent but fairly sure its not related to it being lowered.


There are plenty of egg heads on here that know far more than I ever will in regard to these issues, I'm fairly certain another opinion will be along shortly.

Thermostat failed open?

Apparently the thermostat is working as they tested it, but hot air wasn't getting through, and he did give me some explanation as to why, which involved the head gasket, but it kind of went over my head a bit. The cover had warped, as suggested, but only by an eighth (??). Hoping to get it back today so fingers crossed.

Watched the how to bleed video on youtube, last night, though, which was brilliant. I think the future is in keeping the van and learning to do DIY repairs!