Bongo Fury

Just popped to my local supermarket in the Bongo, p***ing hard with rain ,noticed that my a/c fans were not blowing.....digital display all working correctly, blast i thought!, must be a fuse....all other electrics appear to be operating correctly. After a quick shop, returned to vehicle, and off we went....10 seconds into journey, and after trying the fans once more (still not working) an overpowering smell of electrical type burning filled my nostrils!!, and i thought i saw a puff of smoke come through the dash vents (although i could have been mistaken, it was dark)... quickly hit the off button on the a/c unit and smell dissipated somewhat, but left me feeling nervous for the 10 min journey home. After parking up at home, tried all the elecs again, CD player, interior lights, mirrors etc., and all appears to be fine.

So, anyone have a clue what i should check?....and also what number fuse runs the heater/ac fans?....and, if it is the fuse, should something else have stopped working as well?

Please someone lay my fears to rest!!

I think it's fuse 17 under the bonnet (Fact Sheet in Member's Area).
Sounds like the resistor may have come unsoldered (very common). This is usually caused by the heater fan being stiff, as a result of not keeping the drain hole above it clear.

francophile1947 wrote:I think it's fuse 17 under the bonnet (Fact Sheet in Member's Area).
Sounds like the resistor may have come unsoldered (very common). This is usually caused by the heater fan being stiff, as a result of not keeping the drain hole above it clear.

Thanks for the heads up John,will check it out on Sunday, that is, if anyone can furnish me with pics of the location of the resistor, so I know what to look for........?

It's a fairly large thing that most people are able to resolder. Unfortunately, I can't remember exactly where it is and it's p*ssing down at the moment, so I'm not going out to look

FAQ at the top of the forum - http://www.igmaynard.co.uk/bongo/forum/ ... 43&t=28727 - all the info you need should be there somewhere, could just be the fan's siezed, could be that has then caused the fan speed resistor to give up.

It'd be very easy to remove the large plastic intake for the heater fan (situated under the bonnet) and try turning the fan blades by hand. If they don't rotate with reasonable freeness then its a pretty good indicator that that is what's causing the problem. If so, you'd want to fix that as being the root cause of the problem before it'd be worth repairing the resistor (the fundamental cause of course is usually a blocking drain in the gutter below the windscreen - this causes rainwater to overflow and spill onto the fan, corroding and seizing the bearings). I think there's a factsheet in the members area on how to strip and clean up the fan bearings.

Good luck - keep us posted

PS Miss F beat me to it

Thanks again chaps, and chapesses!, just printed off the fact sheet concerning all things fans/resistors!, will try to have a go on Sunday, but I am pretty busy this weekend .....but it will be done in the near future.... Got to say that this forum is a fantastic tool!, no matter what your Bongo -related problem is, someone has come up against it in the past, and written a fact sheet for it!!......so I pray that any problem I may encounter with my Bongo, will be a small and trivial one that you chaps can help me with!!

Had a quick look today after work, blown the No. 17 fuse (30amp), quickly swapped over with the rear heater one, and the fans still did not operate . The gutter above the resistor housing was full of water as you guys said it would be, so i cleared that out, and unblocked the drain hole. Will attempt to investigate further on Sunday morning, will connect a temp direct live feed straight to the fan, and if it works OK from that, will i be right in assuming it can only be the resistor?

Take off the intake under the bonnet, reach in & see if the fan spins freely (not with it switched on obviously), if it doesn't, that's the first thing to sort out, otherwise you'll keep blowing fuses & resistor packs & you'll be wasting your time.

missfixit70 wrote:Take off the intake under the bonnet, reach in & see if the fan spins freely (not with it switched on obviously), if it doesn't, that's the first thing to sort out, otherwise you'll keep blowing fuses & resistor packs & you'll be wasting your time.

Well thanks for that info Kirsty, it was a seized fan bearing.....dismantled all the top plastic gubbins and took out the fan and motor from the housing, opened up the motor just enough to see the corroded bearing.....a generous helping of 3 in 1, and then 5 mins of pwer direct from the battery, and hey presto!.....all working superbly!!.....re-assembled in 10 mins and as good as new!, even had enough time to fit some new rear drop links too!! (this was trickier than the fan problem!!)
Anyway, full marks and my thanks must go to Bongo fury and its members, who always seem to know what the root causes are of my Bongo-woes!!

Nice one , did you increase the size of the drain hole in the plastic casing underneath the motor? worth doing so any crap can drain out ok, you can do it from underneath in situ if you need. Make sure you keep that windscreen drain clear too.

Pablobongo wrote:

missfixit70 wrote:Take off the intake under the bonnet, reach in & see if the fan spins freely (not with it switched on obviously), if it doesn't, that's the first thing to sort out, otherwise you'll keep blowing fuses & resistor packs & you'll be wasting your time.

Well thanks for that info Kirsty, it was a seized fan bearing.....dismantled all the top plastic gubbins and took out the fan and motor from the housing, opened up the motor just enough to see the corroded bearing.....a generous helping of 3 in 1, and then 5 mins of pwer direct from the battery, and hey presto!.....all working superbly!!.....re-assembled in 10 mins and as good as new!, even had enough time to fit some new rear drop links too!! (this was trickier than the fan problem!!)
Anyway, full marks and my thanks must go to Bongo fury and its members, who always seem to know what the root causes are of my Bongo-woes!!

Excellent result



Where's she off to now!