Bongo Fury

Hi, head gasket probs again for you to answer. I have read many of the posts in search on this problem but none seem to be pertinent to my problem, i,ll try to be brief. Had a pipe burst on me in cold weather and lost all coolant, temp guage to H and cold air out of heaters, had problem fixed but warned that might be head gasket. took it home with large amounts of white steam coming out of exhaust and losing lots of coolant. had sniffer test done, negative. drove again with intermittent white smoke and lots of coolant loss. Garage reluctant to do head gasket as sniffer test negative and might not solve problem, can you help.
Thanks,
Neil

You don't say how you are losing the coolant. Is it being blown out of the header tank? If so, it looks very much like the head gasket.

or cracked head or it could be the turbo thats gone. this happened on our bongo with the plumes of smoke but nothing in the header tank. blocked off the coolant pipes to the turbo and it cleared up till the oil seals blew, then we needed a new turbo.

No coolant coming out of the pipe on the header tank, bongo running smoothly turbo kicking in well, this was why I did not think about the turbo, Neil

Unless you can see some other obvious way coolant is being lost (puddles of coolant under the car etc.) then it sounds to me very much like coolant is getting into the chambers i.e. head gasket gone. Wait and see what others say

our turbo was working perfectly also but we were losing coolant out of the exhaust, im not saying its that and its rare for a turbo to give up on the bongos but i hope it isnt a head problem for you.

thanks for info will relay it to mechanic, sorry for late post have been on nights.

But.....would losing All your coolant and the engine overheating cause the Turbo to give up ?? Head gasket/head is my guess.

i wouldnt expect the over heating to cause the turbo to blow mid you if you lost the coolant out of the engine the turbo isnt much lower than the head and they are water and oil cooled so it could put a strain on the union on the turbo, causing that to pack up,

When doing a sniffer test the indicator colour is only a very subtle change, easy to think it is a negative, sounds like a head problem

if the smoke is on start up it could be a hairline crack to the head

when hot it seals the gap with expansion but as it cools it opens and lets coolant into the chambers

That was the symptoms of mine, no blowing out of the top justy steady loss of coolant and a bit smoky on starting

Wheelquick aren't too far from you. Good luck, and don't try and drive it there.