Bongo Fury

Earlier this year I detected a slow coolant leak from the rubber hose leading to the rear heater on my 1996 321Away converted Bongo. The leak was easily and cheaply sorted by decommissioning the rear heater which is never used as its ouput is now inside a locker. Decommissioning the rear heater meant that the two metal supply hoses had to be capped off with rubber "hoods".

These hoods have not proved to be sufficiently durable and one of them failed recently. I have a Hadyn Callow Low Coolant Alarm fitted and it performed perfectly, alerting me to the problem in time to fix it before serious damage occured, doubly important as I'm in SW France, a long way from any Bongo friendly garages.

With the help of a French mechanic I managed to cap off the pipe with bits made up from an old tractor engine he happened to have. You can see the fix at the top left of the photo. It's actually quite good enough to qualify as a permanent repair.

I am however left with the problem that I am relying on the other rubber hood (which I know to be sub standard) remaining watertight. The garage who fitted the hoods originally is sending me two replacements but they are of the original specification i.e. too thin walled to be considered a permanent solution.



So, does anyone know a supplier who could provide me with good quality replacement rubber caps? The outside diameter of the metal pipe is 15mm.

Would a plumbing compression stop end be suitable? I am not suggesting it is what you should be just a possibility to be investigated. Thinking along plumbing lines it is always better to cap the pipes at their origins rather than at the point were the appliance is removed as dead legs can cause problems.

cannot make sense of this

the rear heater has an in and out

but as its empty once disconnected why would it need capping

afterwards you join up with a pipe the in and out feeds

There seem to be 2 schools of thought on this: cap it off or bypass. I understand there were some Bongos made without a rear heater & these have been found to be capped off. Personally, I would fit a bypass as this will make flushing & bleeding the system easier. If you want to go down the capping off route, get a length of rubber tubing, fit a snug fittting bolt, smother it in gasket compound, screw into the end of the pipe & finish off with Jubilee clip.

I bypassed ours on advice from Ady as it keeps the coolant flow going.
If ever required (unlikely as it has a side conversion) the pipes can be reconnected to the heater matrix.
Cost a couple of quid for the 90 degree bend (hose won't bend enough by itself without kinking) and a new bit of hose.
Reused the the original spring hose clips and had no problems bleeding it. Done about 1500miles since without any problems.

Can I enquire where you got the 90 degree bend from please? That's exactly what I'm planning on doing with mine when I remove my heater.

Simon Jones wrote:Can I enquire where you got the 90 degree bend from please? That's exactly what I'm planning on doing with mine when I remove my heater.

Local motor factor Simon.
Another option, preferable I think, is to use a straight piece of hose of hose with an anti kink spring around it, similar idea to using a spring to bend copper tube. The advantage of course is that it reduces the number of joints.
The motor factor hadn't got a correct size spring in stock when I did it so went down the bend route as I had to get it done.

Hi,you could also go down this route.


http://www.auto-essentials.co.uk/ecomm/ ... -2533.html

Thanks for the replies. It looks as though replacement heavy duty caps are going to be hard to find. I think I will work out what's needed in terms of a rubber pipe with a built in bend and see whether the people suggested by Rita can provide one.

Hype hose in poole or thread and pipe in bmth...

Hello.
From my experience of by-passing the rear heater i used a length of 15mm ID rubber hose,cooling system specific,and joined it to the metal pipe that connects the heater to the metal pipe under the passenger seat that connects the other feed on the heater.
Doing it this way eliminated any sharp bends to the pipe and all joints were easily accessed.
I also done it this way as the metal pipe ends were very badly corroded and this also eliminated that problem.

I finally located the parts I was looking for ( or more accurately ADS garage of Bristol did). The more heavy duty caps for which I was searching are available from Ford. They are fairly a obscure part: blanking caps from a Ford Sierra water pump.

In the end I opted for the bypass approach using a spare hose left over from previous Bongo.