1996 Mazda Bongo

well after a year off..... I thought I'd better sort this out before our summer holidays. It wasn't getting much use, so we left it off the road last year and questioned whether we should just get shot, but really missed it in the end... it's great as an MPV and a van as well as a camper

knowing that it had some rust round the rear arches (the first place they tend to go)

I cut the rear arches out to see what I had... one outer arch wasn't too bad but the inner was shot, and vice versa on the other side...





this seemed a bit beyond me, so I gave it to a mate of a mate with some sprinter arches to fit (you can't get bongo arches, so convention is for transit or sprinter ones).... he did weld the arches in, but they aren't quite what I expected.... rather than leaving the edge in and chopping the radius as required, he cut the arches into about 4 bits and splodged them in, but they are in and the rust has gone......





so need to finish filling and tidying them.... but brought it straight to mot, and it passed, no advisorys... the front washers wouldn't work, but a calibrated 'tap' with a long screwdriver on the top of the motor fixed that... so it's on the road and legal :-)


The roof wouldn't raise, but dimmed the lights when you tried. Checked fuses, roof control module etc but of course it had to be the motor....
to get to the motors, you have to remove the headlining and the unbolt the runners on either side, then push the roof up by hand, one of the motors had got damp (annoyingly from when I'd moved it from outside into FILs shed....where a hole in the roof directed water onto a place where water could get into the roof space)
I managed to coax some life back into the motor, but I got a replacement motor off of ebay and have now replaced it



I have removed the faded and tatty transfers, and the ones on the roof pulled the paint off... so that''ll be rattle canned satin black for the summer





The arches are in filler and primer.... and got some rattle cans made up to thhe paint code for now, so will blow the arches in to tidy it up for the summer

the plan is to get it tidy-ish, underseal it, change the fluids in diff, gearbox, engine

then in the winter strip it down, prep it and give it a proper blow over..... well it's back on the road, and I have a plan :-)