Bongo Fury

Just driven 500k down into France, 70ish all the way, Bongo driving beautifully, except.... Stop at the tolls and clouds of white smoke from exhaust. Drive into a town and Pootle round a bit, no smoke. Blast down the motorway again, stop for fuel, clouds of smoke - check coolant level and it's lost some, gone from max to low.

Whats going on? Does this sounds like a head gasket? Shouldn't I have some loss of power? If I hadn't looked out the back I would have said it was going really well!

Any ideas? Is it liable to get worse? chances of finding a Bongo man here zero, am I gonna get home?

let it cool down overnight, then fill the coolant to the correct level then see if it looses any tomorrow.
good luck.

It does sound like a head gasket issue with coolant leaking down an exhaust port and not into a cylinder which is why there is no loss of power, my bongo's head gasket let go down an exhaust port when we were mid way through germany on the way down to italy and the first tell tale sign was a large puff of white smoke every time we fired her up, she'd run absolutely fine until the next time we switched her off, it was then that i noticed that she was loosing coolant so we just kept topping her up a couple of times a day and she got us down into italy then accross to nice and all the way home.

Just keep your eye on her levels and don't let it spoil your trip, nurse her round and back to blighty

Thanks for the advice M 8ONGO! We are here to see the Normandy Beaches so will press on with a stiff upper lip, extra coolant and Haydn alarm. Keep you posted, thanks again.

Well as an update to this thread.... We did make it safely back home last night. Carried on with the trip around Normandy, checking the coolant after every trip - it doesnt seem to be a problem if you keep it under 2000rpm, no smoking or coolant loss. It starts when you're going any distance at motorway speeds.

So guess I will go and see my local Bongo man (Mersh Bros in Bellingham) for the bad news. Presumably they will be able to check somehow?

If this does prove to be a head gasket (aarrghh) any ideas of a likely cost to replace?

On the daft car restoration prog on Chanel 5 recently they had a car letting transmission fluid into the engine via a vacuum valve that was stuck.
Sent out white smoke.
It was a '50's Cadillac though!