Driving up steep hills

[sleepwalker]

I have a healthy bongo that gets used most days on the commute to work. It has a mason alarm fitted and the mason has only ever gone off twice and in both cases that van was working very hard climbing up into biggin hill and the hills near Aberystwyth. As I'm paranoid on both occasions I have pulled over and let the van cool off a bit.

Anyway my question is do we have any forum members with evidence of their vans bowling over on strenuous hill climbs even when there have no faults/problems with the cooling system? Afterall the temp alarms we have are early warning systems more than anything.

I'm asking just to see what others do and to see if people think sensible caution is a good thing or actually, am I being a bit over cautious. Thanks

[Northern Bongolow]

the proper way in my opinion to use your mason alarm would be to set the trigger temp at just before the fan switch trigger temp to see when the fans come on at first speed.
the mason would alert you to the fact that the temps are rising, not to danger levels but in general, you would know at this point that the fans were about to deal with it, if the fans did no problem, if they didnt then the fan speed would go up to second speed and drop temps, the mason tone, speed rate, alerts you to how hot its getting. use all this info to judge if all the above is normal for the type of driving your doing.

it maybe time to change the front rad to aid cooling, or change the fan switch to allow the fans to come in earlier, or change the lazy thermostat for a new one that controls sooner and more accurately.

[mikeonb4c]

My preference is to have an engine block temp gauge that reads out figures and an over-ride switch (in my case for tbe scavenger fan but you could consider them for rad fans) that i can switch on using my judgement. Alarm temp can then be set for higher value so as not to annoy. Agree with Ady that a new rad (and stat, and standard engine block sensor) on an old Bongo is unlikely to be a bad investment.

[sleepwalker]

Thanks all for the replies so far. I'm pretty confident about the important parts of the cooling system because the rad, stat and pump have all been replaced in the last couple of years and been running the mason for around five years.

You make a good point about calibrating the mason. I didn't really do it very scienfically......just drove up big hills in the dales and set it to alarm at a slightly higher point than the gauge reached on the biggest hill . Maybe my healthy paranoia is not a bad thing anyway.

[scanner]

Whatever you do if you do pull over to let it cool off DO NOT turn the engine off, just let it idle so that the coolant continues to circulate.
If you stop the engine it is possible that heat soak will boil the coolant in the head and that could lead to real problems and damage.

[sleepwalker]

Ok thanks scanner. Makes sense