Newbie - Advice please

[Soso]

Hello everybody, I'm Soso (yes really, it's been my nickname since I was a toddler!)

Five months ago, and after years of saving, I bought my first Bongo, and named her Jeanie (short for Jean Genie). I was going to introduce myself back then, but my elderly parents became ill and I needed to go support them.

I'm now back and wanting to crack on with making Jeanie as reliable as possible for the coming Spring and Summer months.
I want to be out there having fun and I want to attend meet ups.

I've just spent the past three hours searching this forum and the links/lists within, to locate a local garage with great Bongo knowledge but it seems that Kettering / Wellingborough (Northants) are at least 40/50 miles away from any approved garages and I'm hoping that I've missed something!

Jeanie has slight wheel arch bubbling, but nothing too bad, and she needs a leisure battery/loom/tray set up that I've read about, as I only have a lead for ehu at mo. I have money set aside for these, but where do you suggest that are trustworthy for such work?

Jeanie also has an ABS dash alert that intermittently lights up, and she really kicks out black smoke when I put my foot down and drop gear, but I'm guessing she's an old diesel and any garage can look into these for me.

Until now I've only owned mid sized motorbikes and small unleaded Corsa's and I'm pretty sure the mechanic who looks after my car can assist with most of Jeanie's maintenance, but is there anybody in Northants (or Beds) who is particularly great with Bongo's that can be recommended to me?

I'm not great with I.T. and forums, so go easy on me please!!

Looking forward to getting to know people better, already feels like the Bongo community is a wonderful place to belong to...
Soso

[Tony x]

Hello Soso and welcome to the forum.
You'll find that forum members go easy on all the folk that pose questions - It's one of the good things about the forum and increasingly rare when talking about forums as a whole.

You'll find lots of information on the wheel arches and bubbling. One key thing here is to spray the inside of the arches with dinitrol or similar which involves removing the little plastic cubby hole / ash tray arrangements on the left and right of the van by the rear seats - it's only one cross head screw for each. When it comes to sorting the arches themselves then it's a choice between fibreglass or having a new one welded on and a respray which is quite involved and expensive.

In terms of the leisure battery there are again a few arrangements depending on how often you will use the hook up you have. You can do a lot worse than a simple manual switch to connect and disconnect the batteries. As for where to connect the Leisure battery to, it's usually 4 connections made to the fuse box by your right knee (I'm assuming you're reading this whilst sitting in the drivers seat) to power internal lights, blinds, 12 volt sockets and the clock / radio.

I've no personal experience with the ABS light but recall reading it is often the lead to a sensor so this shouldn't be expensive. This fits with the intermittent nature of your problem.

Again, regarding the black smoke, I'm unsure here. I'd check to see what others suggest first but you could do an Italian tune. This involves high revs for around 10 minutes with a properly warm engine - a motorway is needed here. The idea is to heat up the cylinder head to beyond it's normal range in order to burn off the carbon deposits. You need a properly working and bled cooling system for this. Alternatively it might just need an oil change. The recommended 5w 40 is hard to get hold of (Shell Helix do oil in this grade and is a well thought of oil) so it might have the wrong grade in there.

[Soso]

Thank you for taking the time to write such a great reply Tony.

I am slowly making my way around the forum and I'm so impressed with the Bongo Fury community.

At the moment I plan on being out with Jeanie most weekends, somewhere in the UK and when parents can be left for longer hoping to go abroad too.

Have had one adventure to East Coast so far and loved it. Did realise I wanted a leisure battery at that point and I'm grateful for your advice about this.

So much to learn but I'm an eager student!

Thanks again
Soso

[Bob]

Hi Soso

Welcome to BF.

Great answer from Tony, look forward to seeing you out and about.

[mikeonb4c]

Welcome Soso. And yes, for better or worse, its best to go looking for rust problems and bite the bullet on getting them sorted promptly rather than let them run away. Joys of owning a (great) old campervan!

[marionw]

Welcome Soso.

Can't help with any of your mechanical queries, just rely on a Garage to look after mine, but wanted to say hello.

Looking forward to seeing you at a Meet sometime.

regards Marion.

[g8dhe]

The ABS warning light can be caused by several things, check the disk on each wheel to see if there is an debris kicking around that might interfere
with the ring.disk and sensor see 33-471 here http://www.lushprojects.com/bongopartsm ... o=.html#13

Also check the sensor connectors, last year around March/April I had an ABS warning problem which I never specifically pin-pointed but pretty certain was moisture in the mornings getting into the connectors - the early mornings were full of mist , at the start of each day the light would come on, but by the time I restarted after a few miles it would clear, a squirt of WD40 around the connectors may have helped as well, you need a restart to clear the warning light once the problem has cleared itself.

The other cause but normally this time the fault remains until repaired is when the sensor coil breaks internally and needs replacing;
see here viewtopic.php?p=697756#p697756
and for a rewind here viewtopic.php?p=697795#p697795

[Soso]

Wow!

Thank you for your welcoming posts and the great advice within them. I certainly feel I can go to my mechanic well armed now and yes, when I worked out my budget I knew I would be wise to put money aside to get problems dealt with asap and I'm happy to invest it in my beautiful Bongo.

Now I just need my parents to be well enough so I can join you at a meet, really looking forward to it...

Thanks again
Soso