FIRE!!!!!!!!

[lizard]

Only to say bad luck and all that

[missfixit70]

Have you checked whether the motor is able to rotate freely? unclip the inlet scoop & se if you can turn it by hand (power off of course) sounds like it may have siezed, either through water ingress due to the blocked windscreen drain, or something has jammed it. It's not a difficult job to take it out & refurb if so, it all comes apart really easily, just remember which bits go where, take some photos as you go (I didn't). I think there may be a factsheet that covers it in the members area, check the fan speed resistor too, but mine was ok. I didn't get any smoke though, it just stopped working. It could be an arcing connection thats creating the smoke, I've had similar before where the connection becomes loose, starts creating an "arc" which creates heat, smoke & ultimately flames. Never quite got to the flames bit.
It may not be the blower fans at all, it could just be that they were sucking in the smoke from something that just burnt out, are your rad fans ok?

[bongoneer]

Thanks Kirsty, I managed to fix it in the week.

It was the fan motor seizing. I took it in to work with me on Wednesday to sort it out. The bearing had completely welded itself to the shaft with rust, so I had great fun getting it all apart. The burning smell turned out to be one of the brush springs inside the motor, which had burned out so bad it was in bits when I removed it. The brush was all pitted too, with the heat I guess. I'm an avionics engineer, so fortunately I work with all the right tools. I had to get a blow torch on the bearing to get it off the shaft! I used a spring out of a multimeter probe to replace the brush spring.. perfect fit and free. Anyway, I put everything back in the bongo this morning and it all works fine and I didn't even have to spend any money! Bonus! Plus I'm much closer to my Bongo now I've been under the bonnet and fixed something! Roll on the next probelm... no no.. I take that back!

So, thanks again to everyone for all your advice and concern, especially to BongoJim for the offer to meet up and have a look. It's been a long time since I was part of a 'vehicle owners community' and without all your advice and the factsheets I probably would have been down a couple of hundred quid.

Happy Bongoing everyone.
Ange

[missfixit70]

Glad you got it sorted , that's what I love about the Bongo, easy to work on & great support on here

[mikeonb4c]

Well done bongoneer. I hadn't worked on cars for 30+ years until the Bongo. My heart was (is) my mouth when I tackled each job. It's a great feeling each time you pull one off successfully though especially when it means you can run a Bongo within budget. And I couldn't have done any of it without this lot on here. I've never got to know a car and its quirks like I've learned about the Bongo on here.