Bongo Fury

just been and changed the coolant, nothing new there.
Except I was not looking forward to this having had a cracked head before but needs must.

so I followed the fact sheet and drained the system then flushed it through with a hose then set about refilling it with the 50/50 coolant all good so now the scarry part bleeding it


having read as much as I could and being on my own I hooked the bleed pipe into the container the antifreeze came in proping it up on the lip of the engin compartment and started heating the system by reving the begeessus out of it as per instructions 2500 revs, took ages to heat.

Now the tm2 alarm from Hyden normaly sits around 88 to 90 normal driving and reaching this temp I checked the bottom hose, still cold.

I had to get the tm2 showing 93 which is the highest I have ever seen it get only once before has it got that high which was towing up telegraph hill going to woodlands.

at that temp the belching that came from the bleed pipe reminded me of a boys night out and i was amazed how much air came out. no wonder there are problems with air in the systems if they are not bled


Moral of the story is if your bleeding the system get it good and hot, took 30 to 45 min I didnt time it, as hot as it can get to make sure, however replacing the bung in the bleed pipe hurts your fingers so go carefull

westonwarrior wrote:just been and changed the coolant, nothing new there.
Except I was not looking forward to this having had a cracked head before but needs must.

so I followed the fact sheet and drained the system then flushed it through with a hose then set about refilling it with the 50/50 coolant all good so now the scarry part bleeding it


having read as much as I could and being on my own I hooked the bleed pipe into the container the antifreeze came in proping it up on the lip of the engin compartment and started heating the system by reving the begeessus out of it as per instructions 2500 revs, took ages to heat.

Now the tm2 alarm from Hyden normaly sits around 88 to 90 normal driving and reaching this temp I checked the bottom hose, still cold.

I had to get the tm2 showing 93 which is the highest I have ever seen it get only once before has it got that high which was towing up telegraph hill going to woodlands.

at that temp the belching that came from the bleed pipe reminded me of a boys night out and i was amazed how much air came out. no wonder there are problems with air in the systems if they are not bled


Moral of the story is if your bleeding the system get it good and hot, took 30 to 45 min I didnt time it, as hot as it can get to make sure, however replacing the bung in the bleed pipe hurts your fingers so go carefull

Spot on WW, especially the last bit. Not really a health & safety friendly thing is it!

Well done Rob. A confidence inspiring post!

A lot of fuss is made about the dreaded bleed, & rightly so - its crucial to get it done right. Can cause a lot of angst amongst some of us less mechanicaly competent peeps, you make it seem less of a daunting task.

Its good to read that it can be done, given the right back up & attitude.

You said at woodlands that it needed doing, great stuff. It does take a b***y long time, nearly an hour the first time I did this with the help of the misses. There was water and antifreeze all over the place in side and out.

Hey WW,

Similarly had to bleed mine this weekend, also got a lot of spurting and belching and, subsequently, when doing the "rev to 2500rpm for 6 mins" part, was treated to a pretty much constant stream of hot water out of the bleed hose (onto the driveway in my case, this being a water-only emergency "please get me home" type bleed). Did you get such a full on stream at any time during your activities?

no, I presume because I had the bleed hose raised above the level of the expansion tank so coolant only came out with the air

Hmmm, mine was certainly above expansion tank level also (raised on a wire to the passenger side "pull yourself in" handle, I was getting kind of a "jet" out of the bleed pipe when revving hard.

Thats interesting

Can an expert who has bled several please comment

GICarey wrote:Hey WW,

Similarly had to bleed mine this weekend, also got a lot of spurting and belching and, subsequently, when doing the "rev to 2500rpm for 6 mins" part, was treated to a pretty much constant stream of hot water out of the bleed hose (onto the driveway in my case, this being a water-only emergency "please get me home" type bleed). Did you get such a full on stream at any time during your activities?

Was this with the expansion tank cap on or off Gav?

off milady, was following fact sheet so:

header cap off
bleed hose open
idle till hot; rev to 2500rpm for 6 mins (this is where i got jet)
idle, replace header cap, bleed hose cap
rev
idle
blip-rev 5 times