Bongo Fury

HI folks,

The interior light in the AFT tent of my Bongo (i.e. the one behind the AFT lock/cancel button) has stopped working, and on dismantling it I can see that there's a lot of corrosion in there.

I can't see any signs of a water leak in the area, so my best guess at present is that it somehow got condensation in there that caused the corrosion.

Anyway... My main questions are...

1) It's too fiddly to get in there to rub down many of the corroded bits, and it's all rivetted so I can't get the corroded bits off to work on them separately. Is there anything I could soak it in to clean the corrosion off that won't damage the metal or plastic? At present, I can't even get good contacts for the multimeter in order to isolate the problem!

2) If I can't clean it, then does anyone know where I could get a replacement unit? It's not for sale in the store here, or the compatible parts database unfortunately, and extensive googling has got me precisely nowhere so far.

Many thanks in advance for any help or advice you may be able to offfer,
Phil

Hi Phil,
Don't have a pop-top so can't visualise the light fitting in question, but as you say the corrosion's probably just the result of condensation. How about using coca-cola to attack the corrosion, assuming you are able to rinse all traces of it away afterwards?

Digging around various Mazda EPC's, I find that a Mazda Demio roof light appears to use the same lens (51-311) although the housing is rather larger (part no. 51-310)
Here's the page I found:

I recently used white vinegar on corroded battery terminals which worked well. Not sure if it would work the same as the corrosion on that might have been from battery acid. It fizzes away, if you could spray it on it might work? It is going to be easiest if you can remove it though.

Thanks guys - really useful. I'm trying the vinegar approach as it's what I had to hand (thanks for the suggestion Sotal) and will check the results when I get back from work. I also managed to sort out a couple of decent contact points for the meter and have isolated one bad joint that I'll have a go at soldering. With any luck, that'll sort it

If all else fails, the info on the Demio roof light could prove invaluable - many thanks Markas.

I recently saw a photo of where the headlinng had been removed from a Bongo camper. There was surface corrosion in several places on the underside of the roof. So condensation is a likely explanation. I wonder if you could get a non corroded unit from a breaker, if it doesn't clean up ok.