Bongo Fury

Hi I'm a newbie Bongoer. My small family and I have bought a 1998 Bongo Friendlee. I'm a 72 year old widow and this purchase is already giving me a new lease of life. Went to mid Wales alone last week and off to Lake District on Tuesday. There is a leisure battery installed but I cannot see where there is any output from it. What should I be looking for? Thanks Anne

Hi Anne

Welcome aboard.

Is your Bongo converted?

Bear in mind some Bongos have a second starter battery so possibly you have this. Do you have a switch with a little engine logo on it? This would indicate the cold start option and second SB.

The switch on the right is a Cold start switch located to the righhand side of the steering wheel Otherwise normally some circuits like added lights and maybe a fridge will have been added in a conversion, sometimes but not always.
Its also possible that existing circuits may have been swapped over, again these all depend on the converter who did the work, nothing standard.

Thank you Bob and g8dhe - The van is "converted" in as much as the whole of the space behind front seats has been converted into a convertible bed/bench seats. There are no electric lights or input for electric. I used a tent type electrical set last week. The second battery was pointed out to me as a leisure battery. There are no switches with an engine logo. To the right of the steering wheel below the fog light switch is a flip switch and something with a red "light" presumably some sort of on/off or alarm. A leisure battery would be useful! Flipping the switch with engine on doesn't seem to do anything and the red light does not come on either way.

Now I'm confused!
"There are no switches with an engine logo. ......
Flipping the switch with engine on doesn't seem to do anything"
So do you or don't you have a switch with an engine symbol ?

Check under the bonnet, is there a heavy duty cable in a convulted tube running from the nearside battery across the front and down towards the drivers seat ? like;

The switch with the red light is likely the rear fog.

Most likely need headlights on to use it.

And what Geoff said.

The switch I mentioned does not have an engine logo on. I didn't say it did. The two things I mention look like DIY add ons. I'll take a photo. OK will have to resize. Losing the will to live.

OK this is the switch and red light I mentioned

Hi Anne

Usually if you have internal electric running off the leisure battery then the should be going to the positive terminal. Looking at the picture of the battery you posted it looks like a single wire going to the positive terminal which is usually the split charger. On mine I have another set of wires with a separate fuse box
to then power the electrics inside instead of running the vehicle battery.

Does it look like there are anymore wires coming from the positive side of the battery?
It could be that whoever has fitted it was planning on doing the conversion to make things run of the leisure battery but never got round to it or there just linked together to extend the battery life, Which isn't the best thing if both batteries are dead as you won't be able to jump start the bongo and you can't bump start it.

Hi, That battery has just a simple wire from each terminal. The other has multiple heavy duty wires and what looks like a fuse box. I'm having to resize the photos before I can post them. As you can no doubt tell the battery in this photo is on the passenger side.

I would say the red light thingy on the left is probably the low coolant alarm because I have something similar
and the toggle switch on the right is probably something like fog lights.
If it's a single wire going from the battery to a fuse box type thing that is most likely the split charger.
If you upload some more pictures it might help Identify what you have going to the leisure battery.

I'm told a blue light on the other side of the steering wheel is the coolant level indicator. Trying to show the other battery but again. Problems getting from my phone to this forum. Anywa waiting for amazon so nothing better to do!!

The battery on the driver side.

Ah maybe it's an immobiliser then as it does look like it has some small holes in it for one of those key things you push into it to deactivate it, Possibly but someone else might have a better Idea.

With on the picture of the drivers side battery. the cable that's coming of there that has the block on does that go straight to the other battery or into something else before going to the other battery?

Cables from the 2 batteries meet in the middle on a black box Nagares with voltage numbers on which I forget. Leading from that are small coloured cables (blue and yellow) which may well be involved in a green light inside underneath and to left of steering wheel. That light always seems to be on.