Bongo Fury

Hi Alison. Took the pix before I saw your "don't bother" message but hope they're useful in a general sense, anyway. (You're right, it's pre-holiday frantic round here, and it was actually a treat to go and lie under the Bongo for a while, with a camera! It was a full 10 minutes before I was discovered ):

So, here we are:

1.) Heater box under van. Rough and ready I know but that's all it needs. I'll underseal it before the winter. Pipes and wires, left to right, are air intake, fuel line, burner exhaust, 12 volts supply (I see it needs me to sleeve it properly), and at the far right the hot air outlet duct:



2.) Hot air duct inside cupboard, as described:



3.) Hot air outlet, closed. Not discharging directly into the sliding door footwell as I said but able to be directed into there when the bed is down above the outlet - as shown in picture 4.



4.) Hot air oulet, open and directed out into the sliding door footwell:



5.) On/off switch and room thermostat.



Hope that helps.

I suppose you could branch and extend the hot air up to the AFT vent, to keep a child warm - good idea, as long as you've also got a thermostatic control up in there! Remember though that the standard ducting gets hot, so it would need to be a bulky well-lagged bit of pipe. I also suppose that, in a less cluttered unconverted Bongo, you could probably make that a semi-permanent rig. If you do it, would much like to see the result, as it could be a good move for upper floor sleeping generally.

(I wouldn't be so indelicate as to tell the forum who snores in our connubial bed. Anyway, I would get banished to lie under the Bongo permanently )

Cheers, David

Ron Miel wrote: >
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1.) Heater box under van.....



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BTW, the underslung enclosed installation of our heater does mean that it's a dismantling job to re-set its thermal overload safety cut-out (so, I'm very careful not to run it with the duct outlet closed!), or to trouble shoot a motor control fuse trip. The Purbeck conversion left us with not much alternative though, unless we were prepared to lose more of the valuable storage inside. However, there are pix somewhere in the forum ("search" - and ye shall find) of a heater installation (may be a Webasto, not an Eberspacher) inside the upper nearside engine compartment, in a diesel - making those jobs much easier.

No chance of doing that in the engine compartment of a V6 with LPG conversion but the Eberspacher installer did assure me that both of those fault circumstances are rare, if the system is correctly operated

Probably quite the wrong suggestion but I recently saw a 12v ceramic heater that looked as if it could warm a Bongo. Halfords used to stock them but no longer. Doubt if it would draw more current than the Eber.. especially if you charge the leisure battery whilst driving. I got the impression it drew the same amount as a 24ltr coolbox. Main question I think would be how long does the alternator take to charge the leisure battery on tickover.

technophobe wrote:Probably quite the wrong suggestion but I recently saw a 12v ceramic heater that looked as if it could warm a Bongo. Halfords used to stock them but no longer. Doubt if it would draw more current than the Eber.. especially if you charge the leisure battery whilst driving. I got the impression it drew the same amount as a 24ltr coolbox. Main question I think would be how long does the alternator take to charge the leisure battery on tickover.

If you mean this sort of ceramic heater http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/12V-Ceramic-Heate ... dZViewItem, they're so puny, they will NEVER heat a Bongo. Don't forget the Eberspacher is fuelled by diesel or petrol, not electricity which is just required to power a combustion glow plug, and a fan.

If you mean this sort, they'll flatten a leisure battery in no time flat (pun intended) http://www.ekmpowershop7.com/ekmps/shop ... -526-p.asp

Just had a look at the Eberspacher D2 spec. It has four different power levels from 2200 watts output down to 650 watts, with its heated air throughput reducing from 90 down to 36 cubic metres per hour - so it's going to be a lot quieter at lower power settings than a D1, which just runs at 1800 watts output, or zero. If you really want quiet therefore, Kirsty in due course, and Alison, make sure you get a D2 not a D1. On the other hand, for mainly day use, a cheap used D1 is probably a better bet.

Basically, you need between around 300 and 1200 watts to heat a bongo, depending on the outside temperature, how warm you want the inside, and the insulation (including roof up or down). From 12V that is 300/12 to 1200/12 or 25-100Amps.

A good new leisure battery is around 120Amp hours, that assumes a low current drain. At these sorts of currents it will drop to around 80Ampere hours. Its also a lead-acid battery and does not take kindly to being discharged regularly below 50%, so you have 40Ampere hours to play with. So you could drive a 300W heater for around an hour and a half. But all lead acid batteries loose their maximum capacity quite rapidly as they age. I doubt a year old one would manage this.
So heating directly from a leisure battery is really not viable.

What would really good would be a low powered heat pump. If a COP if 5 could be attained that would be 300Watts out for 60 watts , or 5Amps in. But I have not heard of any being commercially sold. The closest is the Air conditioning/heaters use on the roofs of the cabs of some lorries but we are talking about 24volts and huge batteries. Unless anyone knows different?

Dave

I don't know where you're getting your info on the D1 Ron - I've a D1 with 4 settings on a rotary switch, ranging from 2200w, 1800w, 1200w and 850w. The unit always starts up on high and once the temp is above 10 degC it cuts down, even if I've only selected position 1. It's controlled by a temp. sensor inside the heater unit. Recycling air from inside the vehicle makes the heater work better and quieter rather than drawing in cold air from outside all the time to cool the internal sensor. I mounted mine in the nearside engine bay and it's pretty quiet in that location - insulated from the interior from the engine bay sound proofing.

From the manual:

Stage
Power Large Medium Small
2200 1800 1200 850
110 kg/h 95 kg/h 65 kg/h 50 kg/h



Here's some installation pics...........
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v641/ ... erspacher/

dandywarhol wrote:I don't know where you're getting your info on the D1 Ron - I've a D1 with 4 settings on a rotary switch, ranging from 2200w, 1800w, 1200w and 850w. The unit always starts up on high and once the temp is above 10 degC it cuts down, even if I've only selected position 1. It's controlled by a temp. sensor inside the heater unit. Recycling air from inside the vehicle makes the heater work better and quieter rather than drawing in cold air from outside all the time to cool the internal sensor. I mounted mine in the nearside engine bay and it's pretty quiet in that location - insulated from the interior from the engine bay sound proofing.

From the manual:

Stage
Power Large Medium Small
2200 1800 1200 850
110 kg/h 95 kg/h 65 kg/h 50 kg/h

Also from the manual dandyw - and from the engineering drawing in the manual showing the only temperature sensor as being a "temperature switch" (used to switch off the glow plug when a stable flame has been obtained, to switch off the heater if a flame is not obtained, and to switch off the heater after cool down - that's all); and from the hardware; and from using it.....

From the manual:

1. Universal switch
Switch position: Heating or ventilation

(We don't have the two on positions "universal switch" but a single on position thermostat-integrated switch, so no ventilation mode, although I could clearly add that function if I wanted to.

D1L or D1LC?

Ours is a D1L, functionality as above. If yours is D1LC* and that has the additional power modes you confirm (the D1L does not), then Kirsty and Alison should substitute "D1LC or D2" for just "D2", for quieter operation.

*(Have seen references to that model but have not seen a spec.)

Ah, it's you with the engine bay installation. Knew I had seen it somewhere.

Okay - I see the confusion now - D1L is a pretty old unit - D1Lc ("c" for Compact) is what I've got.


Here's where I get my bumf from........

http://www.espar.com/html/service/downl ... nical.html

dandywarhol wrote:Okay - I see the confusion now - D1L is a pretty old unit - D1Lc ("c" for Compact) is what I've got.


Here's where I get my bumf from........

http://www.espar.com/html/service/downl ... nical.html

Yes, isn't it (the B1L/D1L pretty old, that is), although I hadn't realised that until Kirsty ran this thread, and we got ourselves confused. I saw last night that the printed B1L/D1L manual (ours is actually a B1L/petrol, of course) has "10.1991" in small print at the bottom. It's not even available under "Other Manuals" at the web link you gave, and the only B1/D1 there is shown as a B1/D1LCC.

Anyway, the apparent age of mine shows that their reputation for durability is justified, although I might now keep an eye out for a cheapo B1LC to upgrade to in time (I'll get some mileage from this one first), so we could get a better nights sleep off hook if we wanted to.

D1LC, not D1L then, K and A

Thank you so much, David, for taking the photos - even if you were trying to shirk your more pressing duties!

Don't fancy anything mounted underneath, though. Our drive is really steep and the bottom of the Bongo just about clears the top as I go "over the precipice" but only if it's not full of stuff or people. There's something under there which catches sometimes (my husband says it's a cover) so I don't want anything that can get knocked about!!

All good stuff on this thread here. Thank you dandywarhol too (and Kirsty for starting it).

You're welcome

Last month I was sooooooooo close to buying a very low mileage, immaculate Bongo - one I got for a friend 2 years ago. This is the nicest, standard Bongo I've seen and I was prepared to start again with all the little bits and bobs I've done to mine.
The deciding factor for not doing it was that it didn't have an Eber and I didn't have the time or inclination to do it all over again. I just wouldn't/couldn't do without one - even just to use the Bongo as a day van - there's nothing much to beat a crisp winter's Sunday in the hills and having a brew/reading the papers in a toasty van!

Alison - you're also welcome on my part, from my hideaway under the Bongo

As far as under-mounting an Eberspacher is concerned - as I explained, a crammed V6 engine bay, with LPG kit also shoehorned in, and our particular conversion, didn't leave us a lot of choice. Out catalytic converter would ground, anyway, before any rigid part of the underslung Eberspacher install would - the pipes which do hang just a tad lower are flexible, and not a big problem therefore.

In your case, assuming you're running the more usual turbo diesel, you should have no need to undermount. Personally, I particularly like the engine bay install I had seen previously, and which has turned out to be dandywarhol's. Hopefully, you looked at his installation pictures at http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v641/ ... erspacher/ but, if you didn't, I recommend it. I'm sure he wouldn't mind you showing them to your installer.

Best wishes

David

dandywarhol wrote:You're welcome

Last month I was sooooooooo close to buying a very low mileage, immaculate Bongo - one I got for a friend 2 years ago. This is the nicest, standard Bongo I've seen and I was prepared to start again with all the little bits and bobs I've done to mine.
The deciding factor for not doing it was that it didn't have an Eber and I didn't have the time or inclination to do it all over again. I just wouldn't/couldn't do without one - even just to use the Bongo as a day van - there's nothing much to beat a crisp winter's Sunday in the hills and having a brew/reading the papers in a toasty van!

Don't blame you - and I haven't even got mine yet. I've started dreaming about parking up on a windy clifftop somewhere curled up in the warm and watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang on DVD (again). I've given up dreaming about reading the papers. Have never really got excited about a nice warm vehicle before - never wanted to spend much time not driving, if you know what I mean. The Bongo really is as much fun stationary as it is moving.

Would you mind if I direct the installer chappie to your Photobucket pics of your installion, as David suggests, if necessary. I hope though that if I am paying a bloke to do it he should have a reasonable idea of what's what even if he hasn't worked on a Bongo before.

No problem - PM sent.
Alan