Bongo is humiliating us

[321Away]

sounds like car worked on recently and that was gasket failure? does the smoke stop after warm up? have you had your air intake/filter checked? as a blockage of the air intake causes lots of smoke from the exhaust? try starting the car with top of the airbox open.

Julian

[Velocette]

Sorry, bit of a derail but if you drove for say five minutes and shut the engine off with the temperature at say 50odd degrees, and then restarted, would that switch the glow plus off? It would just explain something with mine if that were the case.

the glow plugs turn off when the revs are above about 950. or the temp is above the cold start solenoid switch off point (approx 50 deg C ). if your fan switch and coolant are good.

Reason I ask is that I have been having problems with the coolant alarm chirping and if I drive to Tesco which is five minutes mostly down hill it is chirping when I get there but if I stop the engine and restart it goes off smartly. block temperature is about 50C at that point according to TM1. I am beginning to think it is linked to the glow plug current in some way. Also I can stop the chirping with the throttle sometimes and have since read that that will switch the glow plugs on and off if conditions are right. It may be that my battery is a bit down on voltage I guess or even the alternator is not quite as it should be although I have never had a flat battery, it does sometimes stand unused for a week. Thanks for the answer. I have read the excellent fact sheet on Glow Plugs and am going to fit the indicator/switch next.

[clutha]

As a rule of thumb, blue smoke = lub oil being burned, black smoke = too much fuel in the mix, (hard acceleration, blocked air filter), white smoke = too much air in the mix, or condensation in the exhaust or water getting into combustion space.

[Northern Bongolow]

Reason I ask is that I have been having problems with the coolant alarm chirping and if I drive to Tesco which is five minutes mostly down hill it is chirping when I get there but if I stop the engine and restart it goes off smartly. block temperature is about 50C at that point according to TM1. I am beginning to think it is linked to the glow plug current in some way. Also I can stop the chirping with the throttle sometimes and have since read that that will switch the glow plugs on and off if conditions are right. It may be that my battery is a bit down on voltage I guess or even the alternator is not quite as it should be although I have never had a flat battery, it does sometimes stand unused for a week. Thanks for the answer. I have read the excellent fact sheet on Glow Plugs and am going to fit the indicator/switch next.

sounds like one of the above . or where the live is taken from for the alarm.

[Sar N Ade]

Thank you all for the suggestions.
We are topping up the same amount (about an expansion tank full) every week whether the van sits on the drive or does a 200 mile round trip. I think the clips were replaced when the hoses were replaced a couple of years ago. I have been told by a garage the loss is nothing to worry about, we are overfilling the tank, but it shouldn't be empty should it? The radiator is always brimming so the loss appears to be between the expansion tank and the radiator. I am concerned it could be a gasket issue. The garage said they can check for impurities inside the head, and there were none so does this suggest the head gasket is ok?
The van has never been the same since the water pump went bang on the way back from Devon about 3 years ago, in spite of tlc from Bongo experts as well as random local mechanics (unfortunately not in that order ).

We are in the middle of redecorating ready for moving house so would find the Bongo useful, especially if we don't have to wait until dark and everyone is indoors before we start her up.

[g8dhe]

Its not really an Expansion tank that holds excess coolant as in some vehicles ! The coolant does actually flow thru the de-gassing tank when the engine runs, its purpose is to remove any small amount of air that gets in, if the level falls too low then the air in the tank will be pushed down into the engine itself and hence all the problems with Bongo's over heating

[Mark Norton]

I would be really interested if you manage to cure it as mine has always been like that.

In cold weather huge embarrassing plumes and plumes of white smoke, if I start it under the car port I can't see! it's that bad.

Yes new glow plugs, then more new glow plugs, tested all as it should be. Tick over below 950 rpm so ECU should not think that it's being driven.
New solenoids on the vacuum system, new fuel pump seals. EGR system removed. No water leaks, oil is clean. Engine is pretty spotless.

Apart from the smoke no problems whatsoever.

[Velocette]

Reason I ask is that I have been having problems with the coolant alarm chirping and if I drive to Tesco which is five minutes mostly down hill it is chirping when I get there but if I stop the engine and restart it goes off smartly. block temperature is about 50C at that point according to TM1. I am beginning to think it is linked to the glow plug current in some way. Also I can stop the chirping with the throttle sometimes and have since read that that will switch the glow plugs on and off if conditions are right. It may be that my battery is a bit down on voltage I guess or even the alternator is not quite as it should be although I have never had a flat battery, it does sometimes stand unused for a week. Thanks for the answer. I have read the excellent fact sheet on Glow Plugs and am going to fit the indicator/switch next.

sounds like one of the above . or where the live is taken from for the alarm.

The live was originally on the electric window circuit, it now has its own fuse which is in a piggyback fuseholder in the rear wiper fuseway so in effect it is directly connected to the "live with ignition" bus bar. . Problem has been the same with both circuits. I might wire my multimeter in as a voltmeter before I go for making the glowplugs switchable., but having been reading up on glow pllugs I am beginning to think excessive voltage drop is the culprit. Things like indicators and brakelights can affect the chirping too. I have never charged the starter battery and although it always starts it could well be less than 100%.

[Simon Jones]

Thank you all for the suggestions.
We are topping up the same amount (about an expansion tank full) every week whether the van sits on the drive or does a 200 mile round trip. I think the clips were replaced when the hoses were replaced a couple of years ago. I have been told by a garage the loss is nothing to worry about, we are overfilling the tank, but it shouldn't be empty should it? The radiator is always brimming so the loss appears to be between the expansion tank and the radiator.

The coolant system is sealed so should never be loosing fluid. Any garage that suggests having to top it up on a weekly basis is normal clearly knows very little on the subject. The problem with any drop in level is that once it drops to the lower hose on the expansion tank, you will get air into the system which is the point where the head gets cooked.

There's lots of info on the forum, but a good starting point is to get some special UV dye in the system and get it pressure tested. The leak can be anywhere: externally such as rubber hoses, metal pipes, radiator, expansion tank cap, or internally such a cracked head or lower down in the block.

BTW, you shouldn't need to remove the cap on the radiator to check the level. As long as there is coolant in the header tank, then the rad should also be full as it is lower down.

[Diplomat]

...The radiator is always brimming so the loss appears to be between the expansion tank and the radiator...

I am not sure that it is a good idea to go looking in the radiator by taking off the cap. The header tank is higher up and opening the cap on the rad could be bad news from an airlock point of view.

With this in mind, I have put a Dymo label near the rad cap saying " Do not undo".

I probably undid it back in 2007 when I was buying it as I always normally check for oil in the water when I look at a potential purchase.

Now I know the difference between header and expansion tanks I do things differently.


Frank

[Velocette]

Reason I ask is that I have been having problems with the coolant alarm chirping and if I drive to Tesco which is five minutes mostly down hill it is chirping when I get there but if I stop the engine and restart it goes off smartly. block temperature is about 50C at that point according to TM1. I am beginning to think it is linked to the glow plug current in some way. Also I can stop the chirping with the throttle sometimes and have since read that that will switch the glow plugs on and off if conditions are right. It may be that my battery is a bit down on voltage I guess or even the alternator is not quite as it should be although I have never had a flat battery, it does sometimes stand unused for a week. Thanks for the answer. I have read the excellent fact sheet on Glow Plugs and am going to fit the indicator/switch next.

sounds like one of the above . or where the live is taken from for the alarm.

The live was originally on the electric window circuit, it now has its own fuse which is in a piggyback fuseholder in the rear wiper fuseway so in effect it is directly connected to the "live with ignition" bus bar. . Problem has been the same with both circuits. I might wire my multimeter in as a voltmeter before I go for making the glowplugs switchable., but having been reading up on glow pllugs I am beginning to think excessive voltage drop is the culprit. Things like indicators and brakelights can affect the chirping too. I have never charged the starter battery and although it always starts it could well be less than 100%.

Today I had a voltmeter wired to the same circuit as the LCA. I observed it while the coolant alarm was chirping and nothing changed when it eventually stopped. After three starts as I went about my business I did see a pattern, though not electrical.I am satisfied my problem is not to do wwith voltage or glow plugs so sorry for interrupting the thread. I