Bongo Fury

For information if you get bad vibes.

In spring last year whilst in NW Scotland with a group of clients we experienced a high frequency vibration throughout the back of the bongo much to my client's discomfort. The local friendly garage diagnosed a failure of the rear propshaft bearings. He took the propshaft off and we cruised home to Cumbria with no vibration and just front wheel drive...and very little loss of performance. Great advantage of 4WD?

Now the rub.....This last week I've experienced severe vibration between 35 & 40mph..teeth rattling and dash/windows etc vibrating.
Into the garage (at under 30mph)...front propshaft bearing has started to disintegrate. Slight prob though...front propshaft feeds direct into gearbox at one end, unlike rear propshaft which had brackets/bearings at both ends.
So bongo not drivable without front propshaft or at above 30mph for now. Garage taking propshaft off tomorrow and I'm taking to a specialist for repair. Hopefully back on the road tomorrow night?

Yes..I've checked that it hasn't been subject to the recall notice.

cheers

H

Not so good Harry - did you refit the rear shaft after having it repaired?
If not, I'd be surprised if the front shaft was designed to cope with doing all the work - perhaps the reason for the failure

Yep...reap prop shaft repaired and refitted (after 350 miles fully loaded and pulling a trailer).

Done over 15,000 miles since so probably not a related fault.

Good news

Garage removed propshaft at 10.00am
I took it to Lancaster in the courtesey car(£10 fuel) to the specialists.
£39-50 for new bearing inc fitting and, balance check etc.
Collected at 11.30
Refitted by garage at 12.30. £25 labour
Home by 1pm

Total cost £74-50p (and I can claim the VAT back!)

cheers

H

FanBloodyTastic - how good is that

Harry, for my furure reference, whereabouts in Lancaster. John

Propshaft repaired at:

Driveline & Hydraulic Engineering Ltd
Whitegate
White Lund Industrial Estate
Lancaster LA3 3BS
Tel: 01524 844904

If you phone to check in advance they will usually do the job there and then.

Took them about 30 minutes today ...just enough time to nip down the road for a cuppa.

Last time (rear bropshaft bearing) the yoke was damaged as well and they repaired it...took about an hour.

You need to take only the propshaft in...they do not remove/refit them.

Friendly, efficient service at a very good price.

cheers

H

Can they be put on the Bongo friendly garage list - they sound just the ticket for distressed NW Bongo owners whose shafts have gone

Don't see why not.

While we're at it my local garage services both my Freda and another local bongo. He really knows his way around them and is both reliable and relatively cheap. He has no problem with bongo owners bringing their own spare parts for him to fit.

For example today, having removed the proshaft he loaned me his courtesey car to go over to Lancaster myself for the prop repair. Most other garages would have charged me the cost (3 hours labour) for a member of staff to do the 80 mile round trip.

Keith Motor Repair (John Keith)
Moor Lane Garage
Moor Lane
Flookburgh
Grange over Sands
Tel: 015395 58306

Book 'em Ian

Consider them booked.

Harry wrote:Don't see why not.

While we're at it my local garage services both my Freda and another local bongo. He really knows his way around them and is both reliable and relatively cheap. He has no problem with bongo owners bringing their own spare parts for him to fit.

For example today, having removed the proshaft he loaned me his courtesey car to go over to Lancaster myself for the prop repair. Most other garages would have charged me the cost (3 hours labour) for a member of staff to do the 80 mile round trip.

Keith Motor Repair (John Keith)
Moor Lane Garage
Moor Lane
Flookburgh
Grange over Sands
Tel: 015395 58306

I used to race karts at Flookburgh - great wee track there..........

used to be a track at Heysham too

peter humphrey wrote:used to be a track at Heysham too

Quite a tight track there Peter.....................no use for the Bongo, the karts usually win

Zoom Zoom......there goes the topic again