Bongo Fury

My Bongo "let go"on the way back from Wales on Tuesday.

Managed to limp back to base somewhat scary on the M4 at 55 mph.

I am somewhat confused as to how to proceed at this time

The bongo is now some 2ft up in the air, awaiting more attention.

The symptoms are confusing as they point to different areas and I cannot think which to go with first.

1: Loss of power and misfire.
2: This might be me dreaming but there is now a massive leak from the cam cover and oddly enough the oil level is fine.
3: Appearance of running on only two/three cylinders.

Anyway some history to this vehicle:

I replaced the cylinder head some two years ago and have covered 16000 miles since then.
The fuel pump was replaced shortly after the head again by me.

I did not replace the injectors at the time of the cylinder head repair as I wanted to make sure that the engine would run after the cylinder head replacement.

Glow plugs have been changed though, not that they would make a difference in this case.


My initial thoughts was a turbo failure but that is happily spinning around.

Possible injector failure and or fuel pump.

Getting back to this oil leak. What is worrying me is if the cylinder head gasket had failed somewhere and is allowing fuel into the engine oil. This would account for the oil level but I have never heard of a gasket to fail in this way.

So where to start?

I think that I will take the centre "Saddle" out and remove the injectors/ glow plugs. I need to sort out the cam cover seal problem at some point anyway.

This will allow me more access to loosen the fuel pipes in sequence to see which cylinder is the problem.

Then carry out a compression test of the cylinders.

This should put my mind at rest or give a clear indication of head/cylinder problems.

This would be a good time to put a set of injectors in anyway.

Please note that I have just replaced the fuel filter and all is clean in that area.

At a bit of a loss on this one.

Is this fuel system related or engine failure?

Time will tell I guess.


Anyone experienced a similar problem?

Sounds like back pressure (blown piston/rings etc), remove the oil filler cap and check for back pressure.

Yes there is a fair bit of back pressure from the oil filler.

Also #3 there is plenty of fuel at the injector, it make no difference if the union is cracked.

Starting to think #3 piston/ring failure.

Not what I I really wanted to know.

Will still do a compression test though and check out the injector on #03.

Where is life there is hope.

Really could do without trying to pop the engine out of this one at home. Not really set up for it.

Just how high does one have to get a Bongo to drop the engine and autobox?