Bleed necessary?

[Giles B]

Hi All,

Going on my first major trip in the Bongo tomorrow, decided to do the textbook checks, on trying to review the coolant level, I can't, seems the inside of the resevoir is coated in some brown stuff. Anyway, doesn't look like there's much coolant in there. I've not had any overheating probelms, been on some fairly thorough motorway journeys, engine temp indicated on dashboard has been consistently around the 10 o'clock mark. I thought I might try to do the who bleed thing just to be safe but on lifting the passenger seat up I can't find the air bleed hose described. Having searched the forum a bit I'm guessing this is something I need to buy, but in the meantime presumably I can't bleed it? So all I can do is top up the coolant in the resevoir..... Should I be worried?

Thanks

Giles

[scanner]

Hi All,

Going on my first major trip in the Bongo tomorrow, decided to do the textbook checks, on trying to review the coolant level, I can't, seems the inside of the resevoir is coated in some brown stuff. Anyway, doesn't look like there's much coolant in there. I've not had any overheating probelms, been on some fairly thorough motorway journeys, engine temp indicated on dashboard has been consistently around the 10 o'clock mark. I thought I might try to do the who bleed thing just to be safe but on lifting the passenger seat up I can't find the air bleed hose described. Having searched the forum a bit I'm guessing this is something I need to buy, but in the meantime presumably I can't bleed it? So all I can do is top up the coolant in the resevoir..... Should I be worried?

Thanks

Giles

Yes.........................

The "brown" is a fair indication it's boiled badly in the past.
And if you haven't modified the temp gauge so that it works properly by fitting
a "Mason alarm" any reading you've got from it don't mean a thing.
And if you haven't got a bleed hose it sounds like you could have had a new head fitted - one from a Ford Ranger which doesn't have a bleed hose because it doesn't have a Bongo cooling system.

I think you need to get it looked at by an expert.

[haydn callow]

Get yourself a "lolly" stick. Draw a line on it 1.5 cms from one end. Put the stick down the neck of the tank as vertical as possible and untill it touches the bottom. The coolant should be at that level.
The very stained tank is a indication that the engine has overheated/boiled in the past.
The bleed hose runs across the top of the alernator under the passengers seat and should be about 4ft long and clips around the chassie.