Bongo Fury

Suppose it had to happen sometime. After four years of total reliability, I now have a small leak on the back heater hose. Seething as I was off to the Eistedfodd at Cowbridge tomorrow, with a bit of touring South Wales planned. The tickets are all booked and paid for as well Grr. So now its taping up the hose tomorrow and emergency repairs Monday.

The good news is that the water level is still in the expansion bottle, about a pint needed to top up to full, so no air lock and that it was spotted before I set off. All was fine when I checked levels last week and the Bongo has been sitting for a few days. When I started loading up today I spotted a small wet patch behind the drivers door. Usual as either the aircon or the sunroof drain, but no rain and aircon not used for a few days. The liquid tasted sweet and closer inspection showed a rough patch on the farthest back rear heater hose with dripping coolant.

Questions for the experts.

Will it be OK to get the Beast to Discount Trucks, about 25 miles with the leaking hose and joint taped with Ian's emergency hose repair tape? I will make sure there is no sign of further water leakage before I set off.

Secondly would it best to have the back heater blanked off. I never use it and once one hose goes, others will undoubtedly follow?

At least I am not sitting on the side of the M4, waiting for the tow truck and looking at an expensive bill.

Lousy timing, but better to spot it now rather than in the middle of nowhere. There was a post the other day with a leak in the same sort of place. If you look at the photo of pipe, it looks like the metal pipe is fairly rusty and they do seem to be quite prone to leaking:

http://www.igmaynard.co.uk/bongo/forum/ ... hilit=Leak.

If your leak is in the rubber hose, then Rescue Tape is probably the best temporary option available. The V6 seems a little less critical than the diesel in terms of the coolant system, but as long as you keep the level steady in the expansion tank, then I think you'd be ok for a gentle run up the A34.

If you haven't already got one, then get a low coolant alarm as it will pick up this kind of thing and give you warning of a problem.

Thanks Simon. I will mummify it in rescue tape tomorrow and keep an eye on the water level. Annoyingly I do have a TM2 low coolant alarm, but it is sitting in the glove box. Not much use there . It was on for three years, but developed a fault and had to be repaired by Haydn. Next service it was going back on Usual problem, never any coolant loss, only time it went off it was a spectacular false alarm and I got complacent. Plus the electrics on my Bongo are a bit weird, so I lacked courage to do it myself for fear of setting something else off.

It was pretty lousy timing, but could have been worse. Before an airport trip for example with a very expensive flight to miss.

It looks like a perished rubber hose, but it is on the junction with the metal pipe so that could be involved as well.