Bongo Fury

I had a leisure battery fitted but it only works the rear ciggy socket,someone has told me there is something on the bongofury website about a gizmo thing that can let me use leisure battery for blind,lights radio the lot without having to resort to putting my key in the ingition.Can anyone please help me find it.Thanks

What you are after is a "Willinton" split-charge relay kit.

Now, if you have a leisure battery, then it's entirely possible that you already have a split charge relay of some sort. Does the leisure battery charge up as you drive?

Where the Willinton kit is different, is that apart from being well made, simple to fit and designed specifically for the Bongo, it includes a small 4-way fuse board, with flyleads which you connect in place of the original fuses and thus power various circuits within the van from the leisure battery. most commonly interior lights, electric blinds and radio.

To fit one of these, you would need to remove any existing split-charge system. Depending on what you have got that might be worth while, might not. There are a lot of poor quality kits out there.

He sells kits on eBay, but more often than not there is nothing listed - he builds them to order, and a small number as stock. http://myworld.ebay.co.uk/willinton&ssP ... X:SELLERID <Here is his ebay page.

His name is Martin Bird, top bloke and I'm sure he'll sort you out. He does kits both with and without the battery tray - which you probably won't need if you already have a leisure battery.

Here's what you get in the full kit.

Click the pic for more

I aleady offered that solution on another thread & got rejected http://www.igmaynard.co.uk/bongo/forum/ ... on#p516371

This thread may help you DIY it http://www.igmaynard.co.uk/bongo/forum/ ... sc&start=0 nothing else you can buy off the shelf other than the Willinton kit AFAIK.

I've just realised that it's the same person asking the same question.

Potentially, Martin could make up a kit without relay, but TBH it's probably not worth it for him.

Best bet if you already have a split-charge system and are happy with it is to install an auxiliary fuse box wired to the L/B and patch a number of fused flyleads through to the main fusebox as per Martin's kit.

Edit : typing too slow again!

an amazing kit,well woth it!

A thick red/black wire feeds fuses 6,7 and 8 [15 amp blue ] down by drivers right knee. unscrew fuse board to expose. Cut this wire at back of fuse board leaving enough wire to be able to connect to. insulate end of wire coming in. put new wire from leisure battery through bulkhead rubber grommet and connect to red/black wire at back of fuses 6.7 and 8. You can if you like to be double sure put a 15 amp in line fuse near LB. The LB will now feed your electric blinds, stereo and cig lighters.

That would do it, but I'd suggest that the fuse near the L/B isn't an "if you like to be double sure" option, it should be a definite requirement. Without it, if the new wire chafes through it will short out and melt / ignite.

All the loads are fused at 15a. In theory that means that the 3 loads combined could be approaching 45a. That being the case, the fuse by the L/B should be 50A, and the cable heavier than that.

In reality, there will be nothing like 45a drawn on this spur, you are unlikely to run the stereo flat out whilst using a high wattage cig-lighter item and motoring the blinds up and down constantly.

30A cable and a 20A fuse should be fine.

You know what they say about a little knowledge Dave !

I confess my little knowledge came from the pages of bongo fury some time ago and i then got a sparky to fit it !

I thought i had recalled what he'd done but you are of course spot on he did fuse near LB and now you mention it those figures re cable/fuse size ring a bell !

I guess that's why the willinton kit carries a seperate fuse board so they remain seperately fused is it ?

I had a split relay / LB in place or would def. gone the wilinton route.

thanks for the heads up - i'd hate to think i had short changed someone on a safety issue.

No probs - the Willinton layout has a 50A fuse by the L/B, and a 60 (or more) amp cable - but this cable also carries the incoming charging current so it's heavier duty.

Each of the 'patch leads' is individually fused before feeding through to the standard fusebox, for the same reason that if they chafed through they'd melt. That and the fact that you bypass the Mazda fuse in the end too.

Cheers Dave , that makes perfect sense - going off thread i know but did i see you recently mentioned you were going to try and get your head round the swivel seat issue ?
any progress ?

You did see that.

So far, I've bought a swivel plate which will fit in under the Bongo seat, and i have sketched up a design which I think will work. But, I've sketched this up at work which is 180 miles offshore - so clearly I have no Bongo here to measure up and confirm it will all work OK.

Once I'm home next at the end of this month, I'm going to get busy with the hacksaw and the welder.

I suspect that the original one that's been videoed loses the ability to slide back and forward once the locking pin is inserted. My current plan gets round this.

Still very much work in progress at the mo.

For now, I have a 'small half' seat back from a middle seat welded onto the back of the passenger's seat and an extended flip-over footrest. Vast improvement on the original (IMO) but still more of a perch than a seat.

I did temporarily mount the passenger's seat back to front on the runners, and it's much better that the flip over. just don't tell the BFPS!

just don't tell the BFPS! - quote


mum's the word !

keep us informed of progress - it sounds exciting.

i've looked at some great innovations but the swivel on a bongo is the holy grail -don't give up !