Bongo Fury

Looking for a bongo and found one with cracks in the lift up top. The cracks are in the sides near the rear, about equal to the rearmost movement of the raising mechanism. There is only a few centremetres of crack extension into the top flat part.

My question is does anyone know how this damage can be caused and if there might be other hidden damage.

Repairing the cracks won't be too difficult, my worry is there may be some hidden damage or a fault. The roof raises and lowers well without undue flexing at the cracks

thanks

personally i would not touch it with a barge pole. but that is my opinion, might not be someone else's.

Any sign of a roof rack having been fitted - i.e clear(ish) sticky protector pads on the roof side, or marking / rust around the gutter.
Some of the roofracks are meant to be tightened down / losened before the rrof is activated, but if you forget and raise the roof with a rack fitted then its going to crack - also if raised under a car port etc.
It could be a good opportunity to get the roof colour coded, but I would want it to be a good van in all other respects to tempt me into fixing a cracked roof. A chip or smashed part is one thing, but cracks from the side up will have seriously weakened it and require a well made repair. Not impossible, but I would want it to be £500 cheaper than it should be.

Dreamwarrior mike may be able to throw some light onto the subject...His roof cracked last year whilst raising/lowering the roof....

When I had a look uptop, I think I saw threaded holes on the top, possibly a roof rack mounting point.? Yes I see that the cracks could be caused by opening in a low overhead or by overloading a roof rack.

Yes I also agree about the quality of repair needed. Fibreglass boats are patched all the time and perform as new, so I'm prepared for the effort to do a proper job, just worried what else might be stressed.

Yes I have a decent discount for the defects

That being the case is there any suggestions of where to look for consequential damage?

madmile wrote:Any sign of a roof rack having been fitted - i.e clear(ish) sticky protector pads on the roof side, or marking / rust around the gutter.
Some of the roofracks are meant to be tightened down / losened before the rrof is activated, but if you forget and raise the roof with a rack fitted then its going to crack - also if raised under a car port etc.
It could be a good opportunity to get the roof colour coded, but I would want it to be a good van in all other respects to tempt me into fixing a cracked roof. A chip or smashed part is one thing, but cracks from the side up will have seriously weakened it and require a well made repair. Not impossible, but I would want it to be £500 cheaper than it should be.

Thanks for post, could you expand a little more on your reasoning

daveblueozzie wrote:personally i would not touch it with a barge pole. but that is my opinion, might not be someone else's.

Sorry if it seemed if i was trying to put you off. its like i said i would personally not touch it because i don't think i would be able to fix it
Also i would always be worried that it would break at the crack and then not be able to get the roof down, especially if i was away camping a long distance from home.

lev8 wrote: Yes I also agree about the quality of repair needed. Fibreglass boats are patched all the time and perform as new, so I'm prepared for the effort to do a proper job, just worried what else might be stressed.

I'm not sure the roof is a polyester / fibre material (which used to be the norm I think on sailing dinghies). It is a fibreglass of some sort but may be a different plastic in the matrix. It would be nice to find out what the correct materials were for doing a patch repair.

But a dodgy roof should really require an adjustment on the price to match what the cost of a professional repair would be so it would be good to say you like it but want to get an estimate for the repair.

Good luck - interesting one

Thanks again, finally read the search instructions and found a thread with similar damage caused by incorrect lowering. I will PM the victim and see how his fiberglass repair worked out.

mikeonb4c wrote:

lev8 wrote: Yes I also agree about the quality of repair needed. Fibreglass boats are patched all the time and perform as new, so I'm prepared for the effort to do a proper job, just worried what else might be stressed.

I'm not sure the roof is a polyester / fibre material (which used to be the norm I think on sailing dinghies). It is a fibreglass of some sort but may be a different plastic in the matrix. It would be nice to find out what the correct materials were for doing a patch repair.

But a dodgy roof should really require an adjustment on the price to match what the cost of a professional repair would be so it would be good to say you like it but want to get an estimate for the repair.

Good luck - interesting one

Everything is fixable. If the rest of the van is in good condition and there are no further "hidden" problems as a result of the cracks and if the adjusted asking price is right then go for it.

If the buying price is that good, then just look at buying a replacement AFT try these or others like them
http://www.allansvehicleservices.co.uk/57380.html

did you lift the roof at all?, i would get someone to raise the roof while you are at the back watching it go up.

watch for any unbalancing, the roof should raise evenly at both sides, if it doesnt, one of the motors may be not working properly and the roof may have got damaged like dreamwarriors roof did,he lowered the roof and one of the motors had come loose and the roof lowered at one side only causing the roof to crack.

But by the sounds of it, the roof may have been lowered with something still in the roof and as the motors have pulled the roof down it has cracked the roof.

the roof is fibre glass so its easy repairable, the only downside is you will need to take out the roof lineing to reinforce the cracked area. Worst case scenario you may need to take the roof off completley to repair it.

wayne is correct. i have seen another bongo with this damage also and it is repairable.i have put a fibreglass patch over the damaged crack and so far its held up. it survived buxton meet and also the winds last saturday night at cartmel.
as he explained our damage was caused by the roof motor dropping out. i have a replacement roof from waynes written off bongo and in the summer will be colour coding it and fitting it as i dont like the unsightly crack in the current one. the roof does appear to be a fibreglass construction with a gelcoat topping.
at the time i could get a secondhand one fitted for 700 gbp or if id gone through insurance a new roof shipped from japan was in excess of £1200 and thats excluding the canvas and p+p and fitting. btw it takes 3 people to remove a roof. we know from removing waynes.
i recently saw a secondhand one on ebay for £200 but you need a big van to transport it.