Overheating bongo

[the guvnor]

Hi guys.
Just a quickie and probably silly question !

My bongo decided to bubble like a loon and overheat yesterday and after limping home i came on hear to look for reasons why !
I came up with two, firstly the stat may be knackered. Secondly an air block.

Thought i would try bleeding the system first, and did so today also replacing the coolant and using rad flush to clean it. Seems ok, although yet to do a long drive, will try that soon

Anyway my question is simple, from what i can see even after running the engine while flushing, the bottom hose doesnt seem to get hot ! Does this mean the stat is knackered ? or is it normal ?

Sorry if its a silly question

Thanks in advance.

[francophile1947]

My bottom hose only ever seems to feel warm, even after a long run - it only gets hot briefly, when the thermostat opens - most of the cooling seems to be done by the two heater radiators.
It's essential that it gets hot when bleeding the cooling system, to ensure that all the air is out.

[apole]

Hi there,

How bad was the overheat? Do you have a mason or hayden low coolant alarm? Did it overheat due to low coolant, is the level okay or did it overheat for another reason.

Refilling and bleeding the system on the bongo, because of it's more complex layout, isn't that hard but there is a certain routine that needs to be followed and it takes a while as well to get all the air bubbles out.

The bottom hose should definitely be getting hot once all is well. I would not take the car out until you are sure it's properly refilled and bled or you could overheat again.

You need to identify why you overheated in the first place, if low coolant why, and if not something else like the pump/stat or just simply blocked rad etc could be the root cause.

Overheating causes expensive damage so you need to get this properly sorted.

If you are a member there is a factsheet available for bleeding etc. If not do a search on here and find the info that way.

Keep us posted.

Andy