Bongo Fury

been onto the local mechanic who is fantastic and has worked on a few of these.... told him the woes of boiling up after a while and he said....not the head as it would pressurise the hoses almost straight away if gas was getting from heat to water jacket so............. whats the best way to check radiator and where is the fan switches ? need to change these as the cap seems strong and should be fine. bit of a labyrinth these vehicles and i am learning fast !

rad seems fine, no cold spots, going for gas test tomorrow am to confirm or eliminate this head possibility. had it for a 10 min drive and was perfect. also its spewing water out the expansion tank lid but its not really that hot...i can put my hand under it no bother so obviously not up to temp. its getting on my nerves a little now...can anyone show me the location of rad fan switch ?

sorry can't help location of switches....have you received the hose yet

yes its on thanks !

good thas one problem sorted then

i am beginning to think haydn has been right from the start with the head gasket being the culprit but i hope not !

ok heres what happening now......bleed it up (hope ive done it right) get revs up for 5 mins and all is well. leave cap off and it idles for 45 mins without any drama at all.........put cap on and leave for another 15 mins no drama....now at this point a stupid thought enters my head to check level in expansion tank as we are just using plain water now to try and resolve this issue, so i stupidly let cap of for a millisecond only to hear it gulp (idiot , i know) and i leave it to idle a further 10 mins....everything seems ok, ive got away with it...then i jump in and rev to 2500 for a couple of mins and all is fine, no leaks from cap then fans come on..so the switches seem ok so i reduce it to idle andf after 3 mins or so all seems ok and then it starts leaking from the fookin cap...................so A, i have let in a wee airlock or B, cap isnt holding pressure or C, ?? god knows...... its going for the gas test tomorrow am so i hope its just me not bleeding the bloody thing and my inability to leave the cap when engine is hot !

Sorry to hear of your problems. It really does sound like the head/gasket. Although removing the cap was, as you say, really stupid, it wouldn't have allowed air into the system - the gulp would indicate that air was already present. Let's hope you just haven't got all the air out when you last bled the system.

oil level is at bottom of stick , now i dont think this can cause this bother but i may be wrong..anyone ? i will top it up anyway...

Hi,
Head went on my van when I first got it two years ago. Luckily the dealer repaired it. (Thanks to Hill Side of Derby) All tests said the head was ok until it was tested after removal.All was ok until about two months later when the rad leaked on the top seam. Fitted a new rad and it,s been ok apart from a split hose last week.
Really think the problem was the general state of the cooling system.
Hope you get it sorted cos I know what you,re going through.
Regards, Bill

thing is, its a mates van...i import imprezas and performance cars and was asked to get him one of these. so when i inspected it and it was running etc, it was/seemed fine. like its doing now, running for 30mins to an hour and then boiling over ! so i feel bad about it if its a head as its going to cost him another 500 quid to get a head and fitting ! also like today..ran fine and only seemed to boil up when the fans came on.......very strange machines these..

looks like its going to cost him about 4 grand otr for this now instead of 3500 !!

head test shows no gasses and no leaks ! and has been diagnosed as gubbed radiator ! enough flow to cool when idling but under load and revs etc...not enough cooling.....so new rad needed.....hope thats the end of it !

Had similar problem with mine, cooling fan on all the time when warm, very difficult to bleed system and cold bottom hose. Changed thermostat first to no avail, then changed radiator fan switch, again no luck. The problem is that Bongos are VERY sensitive to the thermostat opening correctly; I have now fitted another new thermostat, having first checked the opening of all three in a pan of boiling water (the second new stat opens slightly sooner, slightly wider and closes slightly later on cool down). The system now bleeds easily and the cooling fan only comes on when necessary, as mentioned before on this forum a good indicator is the bottom hose just being warm after a long run, hope this helps.
Andy.

new rad arrived and fitted....attempt to bleed up and hear water dripping...bottom drain plug is gubbed. cheap nylon bung. i also asked if it was oem...quote "oh yes sir !" and it had the tee off at the top filler cap. now, i dont see this being an issue as it will only access this when over heating....but i will block it off with a hose and a bung.