Bongo Fury

GW wrote:cheers Simon, I'm the other end of the country. East lothian (nr. Edinburgh).

GW why dont you edit your profile and put your location East Lothian (nr. Edinburgh) there, then members can help you much easier?

(Admin)

Great to know some else has used Stabilit helen&tony - its terrific stuff. I still have a supply but dont use it cos its so precious (mad eh!). I suspect the Bongo roof is plastic, but most likely glass reinforced plastic. I dont know of course, but it looks a bit like that from the outside

mikeonb4c wrote:Great to know some else has used Stabilit helen&tony - its terrific stuff. I still have a supply but dont use it cos its so precious (mad eh!). I suspect the Bongo roof is plastic, but most likely glass reinforced plastic. I dont know of course, but it looks a bit like that from the outside

glass reinforced plastic = GRP "aka fibreglass" - the stuff that boats and cars are made from. I think that must be what the roof is made of, because ABS is surely too floppy for such a structure.

Not sure about that franco. Several different materials can I think be used with glass fibres, including cement but I wouldnt called that fibreglass if you see what I mean. On the resin side alone, there are different types. We need a materials scientist to adjudicate

Hi again
I can’t remember what the roof was made of, but racking my braincell I think it’s G.R.P. A.B.S. is more than adequate in automotive applications, and the strength is down to thickness, moulding ridges, and strengthening ribs…the same applies to G.R.P. Commonly the type used in cars is polyester resin reinforced with glass fibre , in either a chopped strand mat , or woven fabric , with a glass tissue as an outer layer. The outer surface that you see is usually a coloured gel-coat. Nowadays some of the more high-tech applications in , for example, racing, use epoxy resin (a special laminating version) reinforced with carbon fibre, or Kevlar, depending on the forces applied to the final laminate, and using a combination of carbon, glass and epoxy can produce terrific strength. I only have a limited experience from designing and building rockets. Anyway , back to the issue involved, if the roof is A.B.S. then the Stabilit Express is good for the job , and if it’s glass fibre, then a D.I.Y. repair kit from any auto store would “do”….perhaps a “piccie” of the damage would help us make up our minds as to what to do.
Cheers
Helen

Hi we had exactly the same problem with our roof lowering in a lop-sided manner, but fortunately despite very severe ‘rippling’ of the plastic roof (looking from front to back) when we did manage to finally lower it the roof sprang back to shape with no cracking. (Incidentally should this happen in the future it would be worth following the recommended manual roof lowering procedure described in the owners manual).

In our case we also thought the chain had snapped (we could see one end completely free) but it had simply become disconnected from the roof. We held our roof down with some ratchet straps and travelled the 225 miles back from Cornwall with no problems.

We contacted some of the bigger ‘names (Imperial Cars and 321away) only to find that they no experience of this fault. We eventually discovered a forum posting by ‘Ryback’ (Roof Problems) which described the same issue. Sent a PM to Ryback who kindly responded and put us in touch with Bell Hill. Took it there and Keith sorted it in a few hours with no parts needed. They had a used roof had one been needed.

Good luck!
Richard

Just back from weekend away (without Bongo).

Thanks for the many replys.

changed location on my profile now.

Richard - Does sound like exactly the same problem as you so hopefully the same solution. I'll take my mechanic friend up on his offer to have a look at it (hopefully tomorrow) I'll give Calder a call first as they're local. If I have no joy there I'll call Bell Hill, girlfriends dad has a business in keynsham (very close to Bath) so if needs be I could probably get him to pick up parts for me.

Cheers.

Gary.

quick update.

My friend managed to fix the roof tonight in a the couple of hours light after teatime, no parts were needed.



on closer inspection I can't really see the roof being made of anything other than fibreglass, you can clearly see the fibres in the cracks. hope to get that beefed up inside and filled on the outside very soon.

Glad to hear it is now fixed. Any instructions/tips on how it was done?