Bongo Fury

Received this morning from Jo Martin in South Devon:

"We have, just last week, had a leisure battery fitted by a chap who apparently specialises in Bongos. However, yesterday, went to start up the Bongo and he wouldn’t start. The battery has never given us any problem before, so we are assuming that the fact the engine battery has gone is connected to the leisure battery…but the chap who fitted the leisure battery is away on holiday for Xmas! The van is parked up on a slope at the back of our house and I can’t even move the van because of the automatic gear box to try to hook up another van? Is there any way of moving the van to try to get some jump leads to it (it is facing to a shed door at the moment up a slope about 10foot from the road), and can we disconnect the leisure battery easily?"

Mains powered battery charger on extension lead?

From the sound of the problem, it would appear that the engine battery has drained into the leisure battery. This would firstly mean that the leisure battery was flat when installed, and it would also seem that the split-charging system has been wrongly installed. If neither of the above is true, then your problem is unrelated to the leisure battery installation.

I would check the voltages of both batteries with a multimeter, if you can get hold of one.

To disconnect the leisure battery, just remove the earth lead from its negative post, and secure it back out of the way.

Once the leisure battery has been disconnected, either use a mains battery charger on the engine battery as trevd01 suggested, or borrow a battery power-pack and jump start it from that. If neither of those options is possible, how about removing the battery from another vehicle, placing it on the ground near the front of your vehicle, and using jump leads like that. Of course, there is always the risk you may flatten the other vehicle's battery though.

Some useless info.
Last week in ALDI they had a car to car charger that connected via the cigar lighters, the lead on it was about 5mtrs long. I bought it 'just in case' , it was around £5.00, but have not used it yet.
I suppose this would have been useful to you if you had two vehicles.

you can actually tow the bongo a few feet in neutral, i read on here that it shouldn't do any harm if you re not going to tow a great distance, hope you get sorted!

dave

I rolled mine a few feet in Neutral no problem

Generally there should be no problem towing an automatic for several miles, providing you keep the speed down to about 30 mph or less. Obviously, the gear selector should be in neutral. Moving one for a few yards or so will cause absolutely no problems whatsoever.

If you're going to tow it any more than a few hundred feet and to a max of around 5 miles then put an extra litre of fluid in the 'box. This will allow it to splash feed the bearings otherwise without the engine running there is no oil pressure to them and they'll be irrepairably damaged ...then as moonshine says - no more than 30 mph.

Otherwise, disconnect the propshaft.

http://www.mvria.nsw.gov.au/media/med_sto_trans.htm

If you have a mate and a couple of sets of jump leads (or even some long jump leads) seems to me to be the easier solution. red to red for positive, Black to Black for negative etc and hopefully not Blue to bits!

...and remember, those little compact car starter packs that are on sale for around £15 (they have a light, tyre pump compressor etc. in them) wont even turn a Bongo engine over. I know cos I went out all cheerful with a fully charged one to start my dead Bongo and it hardly produced a noise from the starter motor (and yet it had happily started a Nissan Micra the day before!).

Mike

PS - somewher on Bongo Foru8m is reminder that you can buy heavy duty starter packs (?where) that WILL do the trick