Welcome back Bongo !
So on the weekend of the 18th of September (2021) the bongo started to get a bit hot. As in the temp started to go up on the reading. Knowing this could be a serious issue, I got the bongo back home as soon as I could.
I flushed out the bongo with cold tap water and refilled, and went for a small cruise around the block featuring hills and breaking to warm the engine up. For a short while, all seemed well – but then the temp started to creep back up!
I had a visual check and couldnt see anything obvious, as in tehre wasnt water gushing out of a hole nore even a sprinkle to suggest what the problem was. Because there can be so many issues with the bongos cooling system, the only answer was to get to the garage.
I waited a week for my slot and got my bongo over to RD Motors, Graham and his team have always done good work in keeping my aging bongo on the road ! Sure enough on Thursday evening the problem, a leaking pipe, had been resolved ! I headed over first thing Friday to pick the bongo up.
Currently in the UK there is a supply chain crises for fuel, as such many petrol stations are empty, including the one next to RD Motors in Poole. My fuel gauge was just about “E” but I dont like to run a diesel van anything close to Empty. I asked the garage and they advised that a nearby petrol station had fuel, but alas, on arrival – yep sold out 🙁
On the way back, the temp started to creep back up…
and I was running on vapours..
As crawled back home at 50mph on a 60mph road, i just kept an eye on both meters, fuel and temp…
By now i was frustated that the ‘fix’ hadnt fixed the bongo and that the fuel was almost exhausted.
I tried one more petrol station nearby which said it had fuel, alas…
No fuel, only more frustration. I got back home and swore not to drive anywhere – ironically i live right next door to a petrol station, so it was a question of waiting for a delivery. I took my dog for a walk later that day and saw they had fuel ! I was around and filling my tank as soon as possible !
Now with a full tank and a wallet lighter to the tune of £83 to fill up a bongo, I had a rest, ready to test the bongo the next day.
Haven driven around The New Forest on a typical route, i notice flucuations in the temp but otherwise it was steady on the ‘C’ end rather than getting over-heated.
by the end of the journey and some 1hr of solid driving time, the bongo temp was ok.
I can assume that the issues i see of slight increases are down to trapped air in the system, as typically when the bongo overheats its within the first 10-15 minutes of regular driving – in this case, there was some increase, but it was more like 30 minutes but the temp always reverted back to the cooler part.
We had really missed the bongo in the past two weeks and enjoyed a fantastic drive out once I knew I could take it out again. The weather had been particuarly bad the previous day so it was great to be out in the Bongo again enjoying the lovely countryside around Bournemouth.