Bongo Fury

Please can you help.
My Bongo's been refusing to start and has been draining the battery down trying to get it going. I changed the battery and this helped a bit but it is still struggling to start. I always wait until the glow plug light goes out and it has not been particularly cold. I've found that I can just about get away with it if I start the Bongo every day but leave it longer than this and it's a none starter. A month or two ago it was starting fine even if left for a few days. Once started in the morning it will start instantly later in the day. Is this the glow plugs or something else??
Thanks
Steadyeddi

How far do you drive and what sort of average speed do you do between starts ? Are you putting enough charge back into the battery with these runs ? It normally takes at least 10-15 minutes with the rev's well above 1500 to balance the charge taken out by starting, and often you will find that it needs more than that if you run with a heavy electrical load like headlamps at night etc.

Several members have had starting problems, I don't know if you've read through any of their posts? If you haven't this link should keep you busy for a while and hopefully help you to solve the problem. CLICK HERE

Wait another 5 seconds after the glow plug light goes out (the plugs stay on after the light goes out)
Personally, I would fit a set of new glow plugs to eliminate that possibility.

Definitely worth checking otu the battery as said above, to establish condition. What AmpHr rating is the battery and do you know how old it is. I suspect that what can happen is the effort of turning the starter motor drops the voltage to the glowplugs causing them to get quenched too easily. Not sure who would agree with me on that one, but I'd say eliminate battery from enquiries before moving on to suspect glowplugs. Even with a healthy battery, this is the time of year (colder and damper) when my Bongo can easily miss a beat or two after starting from cold esp. if you put a load on the engine (even just turning on full lock and the work being done by the power steering can cause it).

It's a bit of a process of elimination isn't it. If it helps, our Freda had different symptoms when the glowplugs were faulty, so you can compare the symptoms: CLICK HERE.

Thanks very much for all of your replies. The battery is brand new so i'm hoping that is ok. It looks like i'll have to try a change of glow plugs

steadyeddi wrote:Thanks very much for all of your replies. The battery is brand new so i'm hoping that is ok. It looks like i'll have to try a change of glow plugs

Out of interest, what AmpHr rating is it?

mikeonb4c wrote:

steadyeddi wrote:Thanks very much for all of your replies. The battery is brand new so i'm hoping that is ok. It looks like i'll have to try a change of glow plugs

Out of interest, what AmpHr rating is it?

It's the CCA (cold cranking amps) that's important on the SB, not the AH

Before you spend good cash on glow plugs are you getting 12v to the glow plug rail ?

can be tested with a test light if no power its the fusable link, fuse or relay

missfixit70 wrote:

mikeonb4c wrote:

steadyeddi wrote:Thanks very much for all of your replies. The battery is brand new so i'm hoping that is ok. It looks like i'll have to try a change of glow plugs

Out of interest, what AmpHr rating is it?

It's the CCA (cold cranking amps) that's important on the SB, not the AH

I know that, but old money will still tell you more or less what you've got (I don't recall cranking amps being mentioned on store displays in the old days). I'm afraid I don't know what is what with CCA so am obliged to ask in old money. If the answer comes back in CCA, maybe someone can tell me roughly whether it means a 75Ah battery or a 95Ah one etc.

Incidentally, I'm suspicous about this new term CCA for much the same reason that I'm suspicious about the way watts output for speakers are bandied about now. The makers are very tricky these days about duping the market. Are we confident that they aren't selling us inferior product and making it sound good with some newfangled output measurement. I'm sure I'm being paranoid and am wrong but you know how its got out there - crooks the lot of them

Put simply Mike, the Amp/hr is the capacity and the CCA is the speed at which the power can be released - which is why leisure batteries appear to go flat if the drain is faster than they can supply the power.

mikeonb4c wrote:Incidentally, I'm suspicous about this new term CCA for much the same reason that I'm suspicious about the way watts output for speakers are bandied about now. The makers are very tricky these days about duping the market. Are we confident that they aren't selling us inferior product and making it sound good with some newfangled output measurement. I'm sure I'm being paranoid and am wrong but you know how its got out there - crooks the lot of them

Its not that new but it can be mis-used, after all if two batteries of similar physical size are offered to you with only the CCA quoted, then you might be tempted to go with the one with a higher CCA or smaller price, the down side to that is if the capacity in AmpHrs is smaller then you will be fine to start with, but it will mean that the battery is discharged deeper each time, and the running life will be shorter. However don't completely dismiss CCA as it is an important parameter as it governs just how fast your starter motor will be able to rotate while producing enough power to turn the engine over - which especially with diesels needs to be higher (Glow plugs to keep hot and higher compression in the cylinders for the starter to push against!).

g8dhe wrote:

mikeonb4c wrote:Incidentally, I'm suspicous about this new term CCA for much the same reason that I'm suspicious about the way watts output for speakers are bandied about now. The makers are very tricky these days about duping the market. Are we confident that they aren't selling us inferior product and making it sound good with some newfangled output measurement. I'm sure I'm being paranoid and am wrong but you know how its got out there - crooks the lot of them

Its not that new but it can be mis-used, after all if two batteries of similar physical size are offered to you with only the CCA quoted, then you might be tempted to go with the one with a higher CCA or smaller price, the down side to that is if the capacity in AmpHrs is smaller then you will be fine to start with, but it will mean that the battery is discharged deeper each time, and the running life will be shorter. However don't completely dismiss CCA as it is an important parameter as it governs just how fast your starter motor will be able to rotate while producing enough power to turn the engine over - which especially with diesels needs to be higher (Glow plugs to keep hot and higher compression in the cylinders for the starter to push against!).

Thanks Geoff. My suspicions confirmed then. I appreciate what CCA is, but I'm concerned that a starter battery should have sufficient AmpHrs as being important alongside its CCA. You used to be able to take these things for granted, but we now live in an age where the only thing you can take for granted is that if a manufacturer can get away with obeying the letter of the law and ignoring its spirit in order to flog something, then thats what they might well do. Sad but true

It has to be remembered that the so called 'starter battery' is more accurately described as the 'main battery'. As such it has not only to start an engine, but cope with all those short runs on dark nights with lights running etc. while retaining sufficient charge to keep going until the next long run in daylight comes along to make up any deficit. Thats how it strikes me anyway.