Spring at the back of elevating roof?

[McCandler]

Hello, first time poster!

I bought a second hand 1998 a couple of months ago, out on the road now in France and just noticed something odd at the back of the elevating roof.

It might be easier to see from the photos but on the left hand side the spring holding the fabric tab is so taught it's causing the screws to come loose from the plastic inside. On the other side the spring is not attached and causing no strain.

How important is the spring? Should it be attached to both fabric tabs or am I missing a spring from the other side? I'm tempted to get rid of it all together as it seems to be causing more harm than good, but thought I would ask here first,

Any help would be must appriciated.

Brook

[g8dhe]

Yes it should be attached to both sides of the tent material to pull the material out wards when it folds, at the front of the AFT there are two spring loaded arms and a weight sewn into the front material to ensure similar operation at the front so that everything folds down without being trapped.

Its not the springs causing the roof frame to come down, the glue they use fails over time, there are threaded metal inserts, glued into the roof which the frame screws into to hold it in position. The screws holding the frame to the inserts/roof also have anti-vibration or locking compound on them so when you want to remove them in order to re-glue the inserts into place its a bit of a struggle the first time, trick is to use the CORRECT size philips screwhead (2?) for the screw in a wrench then apply a lot of upward force to hold the head in place and then apply a lot of torque to the screw and hold it there for 30-60 seconds eventually the screw will start to turn and then its quite easy to remove, but getting the screw to turn is the hard part - repeat for all the surrounding screws until you can release the frame. Extract the loose inserts, clean them up and then using an epoxy glue glue them back in place - be aware that there is no vent hole in the rear of the insert cavity, so only place glue on the rear face of the insert, then gently insert and push it into the cavity so that the glue spreads down from the rear around the sides, otherwise you end up with air being compressed at the rear and the insert being ejected a few seconds after you let go!

[mikeonb4c]

Its common for the screws/inserts to come loose from the frame on ageing Bongos. You'll need to araldite the inserts back in (non-urgent usually - search old threads for discussion on doing that). As Geoff says, the springs are there for a purpose (and from memory they don't exert much tension so probably aren't the cause of the problem) so i'd leave them be. Good luck and keep us posted.

[McCandler]

Thank you for the rapid and detailed replies. I may not have time or the resources to work on it on the road and as you say it isn’t overly urgent. I just still confused about the spring, am I misssing one on the left side to hook to the middle? Or should the one spring be attached to both tabs?

[g8dhe]

As I recall it was a pair of connected springs on mine one to each side.