Bongo Fury

Hello. Our year 2000 Bongo originally had manual rear heater controls. We did a home-made mid conversion and, for one reason or another, dumped the manual controls. We locked the flap in position so air would only come from the roof vents, extended the fan speed control and re-mounted it in the new kitchen unit and rigged up a (not very good) makeshift temperature control using one of those flexible shaft drill extensions....This arrangement is OK but I would ideally like to 'mate' digital controls to my existing rear heating. Does anyone know if this is possible / feasible? Thanks.

Rear temperature control is manual even on the digital units, I assume that applies to the newer ones too. think you're stuck with what you've got.

Thanks for the advice. I'm not very well up on different model specs, etc. Some chap on Ebay has offered to sell me a rear digital control for £20 but he was a bit sketchy with supporting info so perhaps that offer is best refused....It's a powerful heater on the Bongo - I'd set it on hot in the back but it toasts the kids within 5 mins! Back to the drawing board with my flexible drill shaft....Thanks

The digital control panel is would only work if you mated it with the motorised units that move the airflow & temperature actuators. I'm surprised that a 2000 van still has manual controls in the rear - that would suggest you have rotary controls in the front too instead of the digital display.

I did discover (thanks to a helpful post on the forum) that you can use the front digital controls to control the temp & fan speed in the back by holding the Rear button in for 5 secs until the display flashes. At this point the front controls will set the rear system. I can't recall if it can also switch the upper & lower vents.

Good luck with your quest.

Yes Simon, manual controls all round. No problem with that except found it hard / unfeasible to extend the controls in the rear when fitting mid kitchen unit. Thought it would be easier to extend the electrical connections of a digital unit rather than the steel cables of a manual one....Looks pretty hard without a donor vehicle for me to wantonly steal parts from...Thanks for your advice

I dont think switching one to the other is possible, but what about extending the cables - never looked into it as I managed to find a suitable place for the controls without going beyond the cable length, but it cant be difficult to braze the old ends onto new cable.

Simon Jones wrote:The digital control panel is would only work if you mated it with the motorised units that move the airflow & temperature actuators. I'm surprised that a 2000 van still has manual controls in the rear - that would suggest you have rotary controls in the front too instead of the digital display.

I did discover (thanks to a helpful post on the forum) that you can use the front digital controls to control the temp & fan speed in the back by holding the Rear button in for 5 secs until the display flashes. At this point the front controls will set the rear system. I can't recall if it can also switch the upper & lower vents.

Good luck with your quest.

Rear temperature is NOT controllable from the front digital CC, it's a manual slider. you can turn it on & off & adjust the speed & mode , ie upper & lower, but not the temperature. which does make it a bit of a chocolate fireguard

missfixit70 wrote:Rear temperature is NOT controllable from the front digital CC, it's a manual slider. you can turn it on & off & adjust the speed & mode , ie upper & lower, but not the temperature. which does make it a bit of a chocolate fireguard

I'll bow down to your superior knowledge Kirsty . I'm going to have to check at the weekend 'cos I'm sure I've set the temp from the front before

I've removed the rear controls from mine as I've fitted the controls for the Eberspacher in the panel for now. I noted that what ever settings you have on the control panel, it will be retained by the heater when it is removed & then switched on from the front switch.

I just know that whenever I've gone to use it -it's set on the wrong temp & I have to explain to the rear passenger what to do, or not bother

when i put our conversion in i moved our rear digital control, the temp is a manual slider but there are 8 wires to resolder and lengthen, i was getting bored after doing the 16th solder and heatshrink so we could use the controls in the back. the climate controller im front can do fan speed and mode but not the temperate.
glad that we moved it and not just hid it away as some converters do.

dreamwarrioruk wrote:when i put our conversion in i moved our rear digital control, the temp is a manual slider but there are 8 wires to resolder and lengthen, i was getting bored after doing the 16th solder and heatshrink so we could use the controls in the back. the climate controller im front can do fan speed and mode but not the temperate.
glad that we moved it and not just hid it away as some converters do.

Depending how far you want to move the digital controls, if you carefully strip back the insulating tape wrapped around the loom you can gain about 18 inches of extra length without cutting and joining the 8 wires ( I did a few dozen the hard way first ).
Obviously this doesnt work with the manual air con due to the cables.

Simon Jones wrote: I'll bow down to your superior knowledge Kirsty . I'm going to have to check at the weekend 'cos I'm sure I've set the temp from the front before

Nope everything except the temp - for some reason the temp can only be set by the manual slider.

It's the same with the fresh/recirculation setting, you can press anything you like but nothing actually happens.

Is it a bowden type cable that controls the rear temp? I can't remember, didn't look that closely when I took the panels off.
Would it be possible to get a bike shop to make one up if so? vaguely remember this being mentioned as a possible for a front heater repair I think?

BongoBonkers,
This maybe of help.

http://www.lushprojects.com/bongopartsm ... mgno=.html

Looks like although it's a manual slider, it operates electrically then how bizarre they didn't go fully digital.