broken wishbone..please check yours...

[bongomaan]

hi thought you should see this,wife and daughter out in the van this morning,phoned me to say the van was clunking and a bit wobbly so she had pulled over,they got in a neighbours car and after a quick visual inspection followed me it was not far from home so i went for it ,it seemed like the front passenger tyre had gone down,i stopped twice and looked but coudnt see anything but a lot of play on front pass wheeel,igot home ok but when i reversed into the car park the wheel collapsed,as hopefully you can see by the pictures it had a split in the wishbone for a while as the tear is half rusted,as far as i know the vehicle has never had a serious bump on that side and cannot after many years of motoring and fixing my own vehicles remember ever having seen this before.....http://photobucket.com/bongowishbone

[Bongoplod]

Bongoman,your photos are very small,are they set to 640 x 480 in photobucket

[Driver+Passengers]

Glad everyone is ok

[Northern Bongolow]

when you get it off can we have some larger close up pictures please,from above and below, in particular the lower ball joint from the underside. im interested in who made this part.
glad everyone was ok as this could have been a very serious incident.

[bongomaan]

thank you for the care shown as usual and i will get some better photos and post,but i have decided not to repair this vehicle,a very sad day for our family as we have had great times and have many happy memories but enough is enough,thank you all for your help and support.we will be back when finances allow.if anyone local needs anything off the van it will be here for a while as it is taxed to the end of the month,regards neil....

[teenmal]

Glad everyone is ok..

[David Edwards]

If it' s only the wishbone you can get one complete for 52 quid, I just did from bongobits4u2012, via e bay, nice guy too, all the best with it.

[mikexgough]

Very surprised it has "snapped" or fractured at that point on the wishbone..... just before the rear "suspension" bush which clamps to the body..... my only theory for this to happen is if a 2nd hand or a replacement was incorrectly fitted.... what I mean by that is the wishbone front bolt and rear bracket were not torqued when the Bongo was returned to the ground with the weight of the vehicle on these 2 mentioned attaching points.....if they were torqued when the Bongo wheels were up off with no vehicle weight could be the answer why it broke at that point...... it would have been stressed

[bongomaan]

I realise i could cheeply repair it and am capable but when i stopped and thought how many bits and pieces i have replaced and in the box i keep all matters bongo there is a file with a scary amount of recepts in,sometimes you gotta know when to cut and run (at least two years ago)......As far as i know the wishbone has not been replaced and no major accident damage....maybe a couple of good curbings offa mrs bongomaan.....but it has gone though tyres a bit on the front and it has had several sets of drop links but i always put it down to ebay crap drop links, when i have it mot"ed he always lets me have a look around with his torch when he is done and i saw the middle exhaust section was shot (again will always buy stainless from now on)but all looked good and he gives it a good going over but all seemed good,sorry to go on but if that happened at speed......

[teenmal]

Hi,I am afraid that these vehicles suffer from a very serious wishbone corrosion problem (mainly due to the sandwich design),that is the Main Reason that Mazda do not supply the ball joint,they recommend that you replace the complete wishbone assy,they recon that the wishbone will be past its sell by date when the ball joint is knackered.I have heard of quite a few failures in the past,fortunately I have not heard of any serious injury.

[jasonh1967]

Hi,
the exact same thing has happened with my bongo and its been sitting very forlornly outside the house for a month. Luckily when it snapped nobody was hurt....am kicking myself now though for not looking more closely in the weeks leading up to it, as could tell something wasn't right...hey ho. Have at least found someone to fix it up now that I trust and am reassured its all fixable, as it looked a bit of a write off at first. Have struggled with shelling out for expensive brand new wishbones on both sides but have settled for used through bongobits4u and working on theory that from now on I will be regularly checking for any deterioation, as it does seem to be a more common fault than I thought.
I am looking out for some rubber ball joint boots though, anybody know where I might be able find anywhere with them in stock in uk?
Am hoping no more unseen damage done, as with original post...mine fully snapped as reversing back into parking spot. In my blind panic I dragged the broken side back to get into position...which pushed wheel into front of body work and engine cut out at same time and wont start again. Have been reassured that it all looks ok and once the new bitis in, it should all come back together..cant help worring there will be any other problems though.
Anybody else been through the same thing, any advice much appreciated
Thanks

[Northern Bongolow]

http://www.igmaynard.co.uk/bongo/forum/ ... =3&t=57070