Hot smell when towing up a hill

[apssrf]

Hi

Can anyone offer any advice please? We recently bought a caravan (4 berth, 23 foot, 1300 weight) and the Bongo seems to be towing it admirably. However, there is one thing that is worrying us a bit. There is a bit of a burning smell when we go up hills and if you feel the side of the seat it is hotter than usual (pretty hot up a big hill!!). However when we get to the top, it quickly goes away. I was reassured by the fact that the temp guage never goes up but having done a bit of investigation on here, it seems that the temp guage cannot be relied on. We have a low coolant alarm fitted but I see we might also need to get a Mason Alarm re: engine temp. We also had an additional gear box oil cooler fitted as someone told us it would be a good idea if we were towing but this does not seemed to have helped with the burning smell. Any suggestions gratefully appreciated as we are currently avoiding taking the caravan anywhere that involves hills on the journey!!!

PS Am wondering if we need to override the fan (something else I have found on here) so we can switch it on manually when going up a hill??

Many thanks

[kelv]

Do you use the hold button for towing up the hill ?

[apssrf]

No we don't use hold button when towing up a hill.....why, should we?

[westonwarrior]

Even not towing the engine will be hotter on hills as it works harder this is noticable with the tm2 alarm as it has a digital read out of temp i found this going to cornwall this summer where telegraph hill at exeter made a 3-4 degree difference.

Towing will put even more work on the engine so will get even hotter as shown by Hayden in a few threads.

As long as the cooling system is well maintained it should not be a problem but yes getting a fan switch fitted like BDC showed me at the bash would probably help.


As for the hot smell it could just be a bit of oil seapage that all bongos seam to get and is probably not the gearbox

no you only realy need the hold button on very steep hills if its otherwise struggling


But all that is just my guessing

[kelv]

No we don't use hold button when towing up a hill.....why, should we?

I don't really know a conclusive answer to that question unfortunately

All I can tell you is that when I drove up Porlock Hill in Devon with 5 adults in the Bongo it smelt of burning.
When I drove up it the next time I used the hold buton, and it didn't smell.

The similarities with you pulling a load up a hill and smelling burning seem in some ways similar to what I experienced on Porlock.

Try it with the hold button and see what happens, but make sure you are not overheating in some way because that can result in a ruined cylinder head etc.

[apssrf]

Thanks for all your input - will have a think about the fan idea.

Cheers