Bongo Fury

Hi Everyone, I have been reading this forum for the past month and its great!

I brought my 98 reg Bongo a few weeks ago, its got about 80k, luckily it was owned by a welder who worked on all the body work and I have since been under it and used a rust converter on everything and then waxoyl it. Hopefully that will keep rust at bay for a while, I also just had a major service carried out along with the cambelt. All hoses were replaced last year so technically its ready to go!

However yesterday i had to fit a new alternator as the regulator was on its way out and (to no fault of the bongo) the side window smashed to pieces when a tree branch hit it. So why am I telling you all this you may ask?

About 3 times a year me and family (2 kids, wife and dog) load up our 1989 transit mortorhome and motor down to the south of Spain doing about 2500 miles in a week, we brought the Bongo with the intention of doing this drive in the relative comfort of a more modern vehicle with Aircon and one that will do more than 20 miles an hour over the Pyreneese and complete the journey in a few days, giving more time to enjoy Spain.

If you were going to do this journey what spares and precautions would you be taking? Our motorhome has had an engine rebuild, clutch and lots of other things and, touch wood, has never let us down. I would like the same to be true of the Bongo but with these few niggles I am questioning my sanity in driving it that far.... what do you think?

Many Thanks
James

p.s Its a 2.5 diesel with the auto box and 4x4 - starts easily first time and seems to run well, temp at about 11 O'clock and ive just fitted a low coolant alarm.

Get yourself some international breakdown and recovery for piece of mind and away you go, but check they cover vehicles of your vintage. Get a few trips out and about in Blighty and get to know the van and it's quirks/issues and then sort accordingly.

Flanners wrote: Wed Nov 07, 2018 5:14 pm Get yourself some international breakdown and recovery for piece of mind and away you go, but check they cover vehicles of your vintage. Get a few trips out and about in Blighty and get to know the van and it's quirks/issues and then sort accordingly.

Good advice. Bottom line is that many people (on here and on facebook groups) have told of enjoying bulletproof reliability from their Bongos on long European excursions. BUT, if things do go wrong then mechanics/garages etc will not know of the Bongo (and its quirks) whereas a Transit ought not to be strange for them. Best you can do is to inspect (coolant pipes especially), get to know, fix anything tired etc well before travelling. Carry spare belts, fit low coolant and engine temp alarm, instructions for garages on Bongo crucial things like how to bleed the coolant system if it has to be drained as part of any work.

Yes get the breakdown cover if you can. I would like to know a place that would cover the Bongo in Europe being as old as they are. Yes it might be worth carrying some obvious spares. Always a bit stressful considering what would hapen worst case. I would go for a 100 mile run the week before and see if all seems and sounds well. I would probably be driving quite gently on such a long journey... no full pelting it up the mountains ! Steady as you go.

Also at the least have the Bongo drain/refill and bleed sequence translated into French and Spanish. That would be a very
cool club perk to have those available. Or transcribe it from the YT video and Google translate it. (although that may come out a bit odd)

Well on THIS tour which has some similarities with yours, pre-trip maintenance (bearing in mind it's a 20-year-old bus) included:

Water pump
Radiator
Thermostat
Fan switch (the one in the head that controls the fans)
Some key hoses

For spares we took:

Rear prop (our viscous coupling was playing up and chewing props)
Alternator
Some hoses
Belts
Front & rear pads
Bleeding instructions

As it turned out we didn't need anything but the cooling system was worked hard in the run up to Andorra and into the Picos.

We also took stock phrases translated into the languages of all the countries we were visiting (and in Catalan, Gallego and Euskera) so we could order beer, food, brake pad changes etc without having to think!

PS I think ours is one of those bulletproof vans that Mike refers to